Yanerys Gomez
Professor Patrick Martinez
ENC1101
MW 7:05 PM

Cynical Mysticism
The Sick Rose is a short poem written by William Blake and which was first published in 1794 and was included in his collection “Songs of Experience”. William Blake’s works focused on the internal life of his imagination. Blake’s literature shows the struggle of oppressive forces such as law and religion. Blake claimed to be a medium and prophet; he claimed to have the ability to interact with god and also deceased relatives. Blake’s collection “Songs of Experience” focuses on the loss of innocence and some sort of reality check for the protagonist. The dominant message in his poem “The Sick Rose” is that innocence is always corrupted, and the corruption mostly comes from negative allurement. Blake uses different forms of imagery and symbolization to get his message across.
The structure of most poems consists of imagery and symbolism. William Blake takes his descriptions and imagery to a more spiritual and also dark sense. I consider the rose was used to signify mortality, a sign of the transience of human love and beauty because it blooms, smells engaging and then dies, In this particular poem, it is used as a bond of sex and death. The worm signifies death and decay since dead bodies are said to be food for worms. The invisibility of the worm echoes in Christian philosophy as the devil lurks unseen and is a master of disguise. The howling storm suggests times of ungovernable, fearsome uproar and infatuation that may be potentially destructive. Blake’s choice of words “He has found out “may be an interpretation of psalms 90:8