The "Sick Rose"

by William Blake

 

          The sick rose is about a married woman who is having a clandestine affair with another man. Every night, they share each other's love, reaching to the highest form of pleasure. The woman, doesn’t know that the guy was infected with sexually transmitted disease and it is only then she had found out when she already had acquired the illness. The forbidden affair therefore results into the destruction of her life, simply because she already trusted the guy without knowing him first.

         

        The story happened on one stormy night, in the woman's place where she gave everything to her lover. In a bed full of passion, they share a love that was then followed by several nights. 

  

         The "rose" literally symbolizes femininity, which means to say that the main character in the poem is a girl. It was also mentioned that the rose is sick, because it was affected by an illness. The "invisible worm", however, symbolizes death and decay, because worms are typically earthbound, and it could also pertain to the opposite sex which means that the invisible worm here is a man, a man who only appears at night because of his desire to keep the secrecy of their relationship with the woman. The term “crimson” pertains to the color of blood, so when we say "crimson joy", it is the state wherein they both reached the highest form of pleasure through the vaginal “crimson bed” of the girl that is the counterpart to the worm’s phallic symbol. The "dark secret love", on the other hand, talks about the unknown side of the man which was then found out by the girl on last part of the poem.

         The theme of the story is about love, passion, and mortality. There's this so-called love because the girl would not give up everything if she doesn't feel anything different towards the man; passion for their great desire to make love throughout the night, and; mortality, for as what it is stated in the poem, the girl is sick and her life is being destroyed by the worm, thus, it only indicates limited time for someone's existence, particularly for the girl to live in the said poem.