"The Sick Rose"

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

         

The poem is called "The Sick Rose" so it's no surprise that is what the poem is mostly describing. But this poem isn't just about a dying flower. It's about a weird, almost magical worm—it can fly after all—that destroys the flower. Sure we all know about the circle of life and how bugs eat plants etc., but there's something more sinister about that story in this poem. We often associate the color red with roses. In addition to the rose described in the first line, the speaker also refers to a "bed of crimson joy" in line 6. The color is associated with sickness because the rose is sick, but it is also associated with happiness or "joy." The poem suggests, if only, that "red" can symbolize different, even opposing, things. We know from the get-go that this poem is about a "sick rose." But why is the rose sick? The poem is concerned with this question, and refuses to give an answer. It starts by telling us the rose is sick, and the second stanza suggests that the worm might be the cause of this sickness. Blake never tells us what exactly is happening which then we are left wondering whether or not the worm infects the rose. We've all heard the expression "sex and love are not the same thing." In this poem, though, they sort of are the same thing. The love in this poem is "dark and secret" and is involved with a destructive or  even violent act of sexual intercourse, bordering on but not quite the same as rape. The poem does not give us an image or symbol of love that isn't complicated by something more sinister. The rose, an almost universal symbol of love, is sick, and the worm's "love" is as far from a Valentine's Day card as one could get.