Despite its apparent simplicity, “The Sick Rose” contains, in microcosm, many of the themes and ideas that dominate Blake’s work and worldview. In the larger collection Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Blake divides his poetry into two sections in an attempt, as the collection’s subtitle states, to show the “Contrary States of the Human Soul.” The first section, labeled Songs of Innocence and first published as a separate volume, encompasses ideas of purity, simplicity, harmony, and light. The poems in this section often have a limited, repetitive vocabulary and encourage straightforward readings. The second section, Songs of Experience, works in apparent opposition to the ideas associated with innocence. This section explores topics like corruption, decay, aging, adulthood, and the depravity associated with civilization. “The Sick Rose” is firmly planted among the Songs of Experience and, like many of the works of that latter section, its relatively simple form betrays its near-cosmic scope and sphere of concerns. To contain such depth within a short poem, Blake relies primarily on symbolism, allusion and the use of polyvalent diction, or words that contain multiple coexistent meanings.

“The Sick Rose” begins with the speaker addressing the titular rose, who has been made “sick” by “an invisible worm” (Lines 1-2).