Lyric Poem · Love

The Sick Rose

by William Blake · 1794

Reading room

1O rose, thou art sick!

2 The invisible worm,

3That flies in the night,

4 In the howling storm,

5Has found out thy bed

6 Of crimson joy,

7And his dark secret love

8 Does thy life destroy.

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“The Sick Rose” by William Blake — quilloak.com/poems/the-sick-rose

Quick facts

Poem: The Sick Rose
Poet: William Blake
Published: 1794
Length: 8 lines
Form: Lyric Poem, Short Poems
Themes: Love, Sad, Short

Craft notes

How this poem works

Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.

Shape: 8 lines · 2 quatrains
Line length: Mostly 5-syllable lines.

The poem’s silhouette — approximate syllables per line, measured from the text above. Even bars mean a measured line; ragged bars mean the poem sets its own widths.

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Text, source & rights

A traceable edition

Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.

Author record: William Blake1757–1827
Source record: PoetryDBThe Sick Rose by william-blake, PoetryDB transcription
Display decision: Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record: 1794
Text fingerprint: SHA-256 e860480f05144690…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.

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Lyric Poem Short Poems Love Sad Short

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