the sonnets - 147

My love is as a fever longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease;
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly apperite to please.
My reason, the physician to my lover,
Angry that his presciptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did accept.
Past cure I am, now Reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the tryth vainly expresses;
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought three bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.