Page 282 - DENG405_BRITISH_POETRY

Unit 26: William Blake: Songs of Innocence and Experience

Form Notes
The two quatrains of this poem rhyme ABCB. The ominous rhythm of these short, two-beat lines
contributes to the poem’s sense of foreboding or dread and complements the unflinching directness
with which the speaker tells the rose she is dying.

Commentary

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.

Analysis
The poem describes a sick rose and a worm that manages to locate the roses’s “bed of crimson joy.”
The worm destroys the rose with his “dark secret love,” a not so subtle reference to some kind of
destructive sexuality.

Lines 1-4: Summary
Line 1
O rose thou art sick
The poem opens with the speaker addressing the rose. The speaker tells the rose that it is sick.

Lines 2-4
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm
The speaker describes as “invisible worm” that flies. The worm can also fly when it’s raining. We
don’t know what this worm is doing in the poem or even what kind of worm it is. An invisible
worm that can fly? Is it some kind of butterfly?
Lines 5-6
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
The speaker tells us more about the worm; it has found the rose’s bed. The status of this “bed” is
ambiguous. It could be just a place where the rose sleeps that happens to be “crimson”. It could also
be a “bed” of something, like a “bed of roses” or something else that’s red. This would make the
rose a gardener of some kind.

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