Sonnet 147

1 My love is as a fever longing still,
2 For that which longer nurseth the disease,
3 Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
4 Th’ uncertain sickly appetite to please:
5 My reason the physician to my love,
6 Angry that his prescriptions are not kept
7 Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,
8 Desire is death, which physic did except.
9 Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
10 And frantic-mad with evermore unrest,
11 My thoughts and my discourse as mad men’s are,
12 At random from the truth vainly expressed.
13 For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
14 Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.