write a brief summary poem 8 lines
Answers
The Sick Rose
by - William Blake
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.
Summary
‘The Sick Rose’ by William Blake describes the loss of a woman’s virginity through the metaphor of a rose and invisible worm.
The poem begins with the speaker telling the rose that she is sick. This sickness is caused by the “invisible worm.” The phallic shaped worm comes to the rose at night in the middle of “the howling storm.” There is a real sense of danger and dread in these lines that only builds as the poem progresses and Blake makes use of enjambment. In the second stanza of ‘The Sick Rose’ the worm finds the rose’s bed. The rose is afflicted with the worm’s “dark secret love” and has its life destroyed. The worm, which clearly represents a phallus, kills the rose—the woman’s, virginity.