My Pretty Rose Tree by William Blake Poem Analysis

The poem “My Pretty Rose Tree”, a song of experience by William Blake, details the importance of trust in a relationship and how easily a fragile love can be torn apart by jealousy. By using symbolism and imagery, Blake depicts women as delicate flowers that are quick to fall apart, he uses structure to provide context to the deeper motivations of jealousy, and he uses metaphor to connect thorns and danger to jealousy in love. The message Blake gets across through this poem is that love is fragile and that jealousy has the ability to hastily ruin pure innocent love.

Through the expertly crafted use of symbolism and imagery, Blake depicts two women in conversation with the narrator as delicate flowers. The narrator first mentions a flower offered to them, then continues on to reference their rose tree. These two flowers are both meant to symbolize women they come into contact with. The first woman is represented as a mere flower, indicating the narrator was offered a one night stand, as a singular flower would be unable to survive on its own without the bush or tree it grew on, showing that this offer was intended to be temporary or short lived. This symbolism can be pushed further to refer to a common metaphor of a woman “giving her significant other her flower” in which “flower” would be indicative of her virginity. In the accompanying artwork, this flower is depicted as far less personified than the woman representing the rose tree as a way to demonstrate the short lived nature and impersonal attachment to the singular flower. While the flower drawn may be more colourful, larger, and overall far more stunning than any of the roses on the rose tree, she is still less human as her offer is not intended to last as the single cut flower dies. This is in reference to the quote: “Such a flower as May never bore” and the adjective “sweet” used to describe the flower. While the narrator and artist acknowledge the flower as being far greater than any flower blooming on the rose tree, it is still just that, a single flower. The other flower introduced however, is a full blooming rose tree. The rose tree is a symbol for the narrator’s significant other. Rather than being one single flower, unable to flourish on it’s own, the narrator imagines her to be thriving and growing, capable of sustaining and offering many flowers. This rose tree in the accompanying artwork is far more human, she is fully personified with a bipedal structure, hair and a face. This demonstrates the personal connection between the narrator and the “rose tree” or their significant other. It is interesting to note that the representations of these women are soft, delicate flowers rather than, for example, precious gemstones or shiny metals. While the juxtaposition could still work with other symbols, like a shiny piece of gold compared to a mine, the fact that they are delicate and fragile helps to push the theme of jealousy farther. Blake is arguing here that love is tender, easily broken, as is a flower given how readily they wilt if not taken proper care of. Flowers, as well as relationships, must be handled with great care to allow them to flourish and bloom and the slightest thing that goes wrong could be enough to end the whole affair.

This poem does not end with a “Happily Ever After” fairy tale ending, rather, it ends discontentedly with the narrator delighting in his significant other’s thorny exterior. The cause for their discourse is suggested in the format of the poem. The rose tree is mentioned in the first stanza, but only truly paid attention to in the second stanza. The rose tree feels as though she has been placed secondary in importance after this “sweet” flower as the flower was given the narrator's attention first in stanza one. Despite the narrator’s clear efforts in remaining loyal to the rose tree, the mere suggestion that another could possibly take his attention away from the rose tree for a single second was too much for their love to bear. The rose tree thus gets jealous of the flower for being able to take a position in the narrator’s mind as “sweet” and greater than all others he had ever seen and she turns away from him, their fragile bond shattered. Though the narrator had no intentions of being with this other woman, their significant other took the fact that they acknowledged the flower at all as a sign of infidelity and lost her trust in them, allowing the jealousy to overtake the relationship. This dynamic is represented in the artwork through the position of the figures. Reading left to right as one would a book in most English speaking cultures, the flower is placed before the rose tree. Despite the narrator’s hand being held up turning the flower away, the rose tree is discontented with being placed second and is turned away from the narrator with her arms crossed showing him only her thorny backside as she goes to leave him.

As one must fear and avoid the thorns on a rose for their danger to the beholder, they must also fear the jealousy of a fragile love for its dangerous ability to destroy the goodness in a relationship. A rose bush will always have thorns, whether or not the beautiful delicate flowers are in bloom, as will love always have jealousy hidden beneath the layers of adoration. The narrator has found this out through their significant other reacting poorly to being jealous of another flower prettier than herself. Though the narrator can not be placed at fault for their significant other’s jealousy of the flower they had been offered, they still had to learn the lesson of enviousness through her and have their relationship crumble as a result of it. The final line “And her thorns were my only delight” depicted in the artwork as the thorns sticking out towards the narrator show how they chose to handle the situation. Their love had been too fragile to withstand the slightest insecurities so the narrator is left to grasp on to whatever semblance of their past relationship they can get. The only thing they can grab a hold of is the thorny wall their significant other has put up between them as a means of protecting herself from future harm. This is similar to how rose trees in nature have thorns to protect themselves from predators, animals that would try to eat them. One must nurture a fragile love and reassure their significant other that they are truly loyal so as to build trust between them to avoid such jealousy from breaking it down as it has with the narrator and their “pretty rose tree.”

“My Pretty Rose Tree” by William Blake has strong themes of jealousy as a result of a delicate relationship. The artwork in conjunction with the poem details clearly the intense ability jealousy has to ruin pure innocent love. Through analysis and interpretation it is easy to see the fragility of the relationship between the narrator and the rose tree due to a lack of trust and self confidence, the rose tree seeing herself as less than the flower and the narrator giving the flower more attention than the rose tree could bear ultimately crushed their relationship, driving a wall of thorns between them.