Love
The Sick Rose
From Songs Of Experience
Love
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.
✦ ✦ ✦
Codex Note
Eight lines that never name what they mean. The worm’s ‘dark secret love’ turns desire into disease — Blake makes concealment itself the corruption, the rose ruined less by the worm than by the secrecy that surrounds it.
Cite this poem
MLA
Blake, William. “The Sick Rose.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/blake/27/.
Chicago
Blake, William. “The Sick Rose.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/blake/27/.
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