The Sick Rose - William Blake

This poem is so sad! I really feel at one with this poem because I always feel so sad when a bouquet of flowers dies....it's like they were cut just so I could watch them die. I almost hate getting flowers because I can't bear to watch them wilt and die. Of course the flowers I'm referring to always die from old age (yeah...1 or 2 weeks) but this rose was murdered! It of course, makes me dislike bugs even more. It reminds me of these birches we had at my old house that died because some bugs invaded them and started eating through the wood. It was the saddest thing ever when I had to watch my dad and my uncles cut the birches down, and then to look at their stumps filled with little holes of where the bugs attacked.

I do want to know why the worm Blake is referring to is invisible...does that mean that this worm is just hard to see, or is it supposed to be a metaphor for something? Can a worm be a synonym for bug, like a bug that makes you sick? Not an insect bug, but a viral bug, and maybe that's why the rose is sick?

I like the joyous crimson bed bit. Because a rose is crimson, but crimson also makes me think of blood. And if the bug Blake is referring to is of the insect variety then this crimson almost plays two parts. It's not only the color of the rose, but the blood of the rose which this bug has invaded.

The last two lines just totally blow me away though. "And his dark secret love / Does thy life destroy." Because sometimes in life, that's just how it is...somebody else's love for you can destroy you. What happens when this person's love is so deep and passionate, but you don't feel the same way, but since you feel so bad, you go along with it anyway, which kills you inside? Or the relationship is so bad but you don't want to end it and it just hurts more and more each day? Could this short 8 line poem be a metaphor for a relationship of Blake's? Oh poor poor William!