You promised me love
You gave me your word
You left me alone
And left like a bird.
Thou returned too late
My senses grown cold
Suspicions in heart
I’m weary and old.
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.
The shadows are dark,
My jealousy green
The worm heart has killed
Our luminous sheen.
A second offering to cover a poet for Bryan at dVerse, this time I have added some verses to William Blake’s “The Sick Rose”, perhaps giving my interpretation of his poem.
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November 29, 2017

stunning! Love how you took a poem that is seemingly about a dying rose, and gave it an entirely new meaning with your added verses.
It’s the meaning I have always found in the poem… so that was easy actually.
Ahhh!Blake poem within my inner English literature soul is having a poem gasm right now!! Amazing poem!!!
Blake’s verses and yours are seamlessly connected Bjorn ~ Love that worm heart in the ending stanza ~
Your verses add a great deal of meaning to Mr. Blake’s. His poem is short and leaves lots of questions unanswered. Your addition fills out the details
Wow, I like what you did with this one. You really added depth and perhaps some more mystery.
I liked it. There was a book by Jennifer Johnston that made reference to this and it is haunting, I think your interpretation is also haunting.
Marvellous write, Björn
You’ve connected an incredible poem. Blake and yourself in the mix. Brilliant. 🙂
Nicely done. It is as if the Blake verses become a commentary on your own – the way the mind does range over thoughts, emotions, experiences, remembered poems that suddenly become personally relevant….
It’s like a call and refrain. You speak to Blake and he answers you, and vice versa. It works really well.
Very well done. I was reading your flash and saw the title and came to check it out.
I posted a rather dark poem about unrequited love today. Devastating as it was at the time, it’s a relief to have it so far behind me now when it had me in its grasp: https://beyondtheflow.wordpress.com/2016/12/06/slide-night-dumped-in-paris/
xx Rowena