 Johnson describes My Pretty Rose Tree as "...an ironic reconsideration of the emblem convention.Blake's speaker, having rejected the lovely flower offered him, tries to tend his pretty rose tree with all the single-minded ardor of a Petrarchan lover; but his devotion is a sickness nourished by his perverse or ironic 'delight' in the thorns of jealousy.His love object...both attracts and repels..."  In this, the man in the poem is trying to show his love to his rose tree, but only seems to have the love unrequited, even though he treats the rose tree like royalty.