The lily- William Blake

The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,
The humble sheep a threat'ning horn:

While the Lily white shall in love delight,
Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.

                                                                                                           The Lilly is offered as a form of perfect love in its innocence and honesty. It does not bear harmful thorns, like the rose, nor does it wear horns it will never use offensively, like the sheep. Instead, the lily offers itself as it is: pure and vulnerable.

It is this vulnerability, however, that keeps it from fully engaging in life. Although it is described mostly in positive terms, the Lily is predominantly an image of death and, in some cases, virginity. In keeping with the other flower-poems of Songs of Experience, self-denial is the same as self-murder; the lily in its purity is already dead as winter.