... in a pitiful, judgmental tone, paralleling his subject with an ill flower, hence the title. Blake uses the rose, which has historically signified femininity, to provide the reader with a sense of the homosexual's frail, feminine nature. The "invisible worm that flies by night", is a bold reference to the turbulent penis of the sick rose, whose debauched behaviors are performed as surreptitiously as possible amidst passionate caterwauling. "Thy bed of ... these poems, "I must create a system or be enslaved by another man's." In his work entitled "Prophecy" (1794) Blake expresses his cond...

• Word Count: 556
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: Undergraduate