Sick Rose by

William Blake

O Rose thou art sick.

The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

Summary

The speaker, addressing a rose, informs it that it is sick. An “invisible” worm has stolen into its
bed in a “howling storm” and under the cover of night. The “dark secret love” of this worm is
destroying the rose’s life.

Form

The Sick Rose" has a regular rhyme scheme, with the second and fourth lines of both stanzas
rhyming together. The poem, then, follows a pattern of:

ABCB DEFE

"The Sick Rose" has a very loose meter that could be called anapestic dimeter

O Rose | thou art sick.

The invis- | ible worm,
That flies | in the night
In the howl- | ing storm:

While the rose exists as a beautiful natural object that has become infected by a worm, it also
exists as a literary rose, the conventional symbol of love. The image of the worm resonates with
the Biblical serpent and also suggests a phallus. Worms are quintessentially earthbound, and
symbolize death and decay. The “bed” into which the worm creeps denotes both the natural
flowerbed and also the lovers’ bed. The rose is sick, and the poem implies that love is sick as
well. Yet the rose is unaware of its sickness. Of course, an actual rose could not know anything
about its own condition, and so the emphasis falls on the allegorical suggestion that it is love that
does not recognize its own ailing state. This results partly from the insidious secrecy with which
the “worm” performs its work of corruption—not only is it invisible, it enters the bed at night.
This secrecy indeed constitutes part of the infection itself. The “crimson joy” of the rose
connotes both sexual pleasure and shame, thus joining the two concepts in a way that Blake
thought was perverted and unhealthy. The rose’s joyful attitude toward love is tainted by the aura
of shame and secrecy that our culture attaches to love.

Paraphrase:

Stanza 1:The speaker, the poet himself, calls a rose sick. He uses an apostrophe, which means
that he is calling the rose, signifying it as a personification. He states that the rose is sick and that
an invisible worm has reached it during the howling storm at night and made it his home. The
poem shows the poetic art of Blake, signifying how beauty and love become the victim of the
invisible forces of nature. The stanza contributes to the main ideas of love and hatred.

Stanza 2: The speaker states that the invisible worm has made this crimson flower on his bed.
However, when this worm, just out of love, lives in flower, it destroys the life of that very
flower. The flower fades away because of the dark and secret love of the worm. It means that
although the worm loves beauty, it destroys life. This destruction is at the heart of love. This
stanza completes the main idea of love, hatred, and destruction. However, this meaning lies in
the symbolic meanings of the poem.

The Sick Rose” Themes

Death, Destruction, and Innocence

Symbols

The rose is read as a symbol, as it often is, for the natural beauty and majesty of creation, then the
poem becomes an allegory for such beauty's inevitable destruction—for the fact that nothing can last
forever, and that death and decay come for all living things. The rose's fate may also represent the
corruption of innocence by the harsh realities of the world. 

Personification : Worm as a corruptive human being

The fact that the poem personifies the worm as a hardy and determined figure—one that flies at night of
“howling storm” in order to have its way with the rose—further suggests that the forces of destruction
and/or corruption will always get their way in the end, that, inevitably, the rose will lose its innocence
and die.
Alliteration appears in the poem's final two lines:

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

Assonance: O Rose thou art sick

Summary of the literary devices used in this poem has been given below.

1. Assonance: Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in the same line such as the sound of
/o/ in “O Rose thou art sick”.
2. Allegory: It is a figure of speech in which abstract ideas and principles are described in terms of
characters, figures, and events. The speaker has used allegoric expression at the beginning of the
poem when he informs rose about her sickness such as; “O Rose thou art sick.”
3. Apostrophe: An apostrophe is a device used to call somebody or something from afar. Here, the
poet has used an apostrophe to call the rose a thing of misery “O Rose thou art sick” expressing
sorrow and sadness by calling the star directly.
4. Consonance: Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line. For example,
the sound of /r/ in “And his dark secret love.”
5. Enjambment: It is defined as a thought in verse that does not come to an end at a line break;
instead, it continues in the next line. For example,

“Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.”

6. Imagery: Imagery is used to make readers perceive things involving their five senses. For
example, “O Rose thou art sick”, “The invisible worm/That flies in the night” and “Has found out
thy bed.”
7. Metaphor: It is a figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made between the objects
that are different in nature. For example, “O Rose thou art sick.” Here, sickness is the metaphor
of something deeper than a flower.
8. Symbolism: Symbolism is using symbols to signify ideas and qualities, giving them symbolic
meanings that are different from the literal meanings. “Bed” symbolizes the ground and
“crimson joy” is the symbol of the beauty of that rose.

Analysis of Poetic Devices Used in The Sick Rose

Poetic and literary devices are the same, but a few are used only in poetry. Here is an analysis of
some of the poetic devices used in this poem.
1. End Rhyme: End Rhyme is used to make the stanza melodious. The post has used end rhyme in
the text. For example, “worm/storm” and “joy/destroy.”
2. Quatrain: A quatrain is a four-lined stanza borrowed from Persian poetry. Here, each stanza is a
quatrain.
3. Rhyme Scheme: The poem follows the ABCB rhyme scheme and this pattern continues until the
end.
4. Stanza: A stanza is a poetic form of some lines. There are two stanzas in this poem with each
comprises four lines.