How can William Blake's The Sick Rose be read as anything more than simple metaphor?

There is a common metaphorical reading of this poem. This poem is an apostrophe, which means it is addressed to a person or thing. The subject of the apostrophe, the rose, can be read as a woman, and the worm as a phallus. In the poem the Rose is immediately personified and thus used figuratively. The use of personal pronouns ‘thou’ and ‘thy’ reinforce the reading of the rose as a woman being seduced. However, whilst the figurative meanings of this poem erupt from the page, the literal remains powerful: the rose is being destroyed. It is this collaboration of the literal and the figurative expressions that makes the poem amazing. Moreover, the conventionality - that is a common trope - of referring to a woman as a rose is distorted when coupled with illness. In other words it is usual for a woman to be associated with a rose but not usual for her to be associated with a sick rose. This creates a unique metaphor for the woman's situation that stems from the conventional. Her sickness is striking, because it is represented as both physical and mental, creating many meanings. The use of the word ‘bed’ in the text continues this exploration of multiplicity of meaning. The literal meaning in this context is that of a flower-bed, nonetheless the extended metaphor of the rose as a woman implies the bed is also both her place of rest and procreation as well as the figurative association of sleep with death. To be able to establish such linkage and recognise the connection between various images and implications is perhaps the real meaning of the poem. There is no simple metaphor.