Sonnet 118

1 Like as to make our appetite more keen
2 With eager compounds we our palate urge,
3 As to prevent our maladies unseen,
4 We sicken to shun sickness when we purge.
5 Even so being full of your ne’er-cloying sweetness,
6 To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;
7 And sick of welfare found a kind of meetness,
8 To be diseased ere that there was true needing.
9 Thus policy in love t’ anticipate
10 The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,
11 And brought to medicine a healthful state
12 Which rank of goodness would by ill be cured.
13 But thence I learn and find the lesson true,
14 Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.