My love is as a fever longing still,

For that which longer nurseth the disease,

Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,

Th’ uncertain sickly appetite to please:

My reason the physician to my love,

Angry that his prescriptions are not kept

Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,

Desire is death, which physic did except.

Past cure I am, now reason is past care,

And frantic-mad with evermore unrest,

My thoughts and my discourse as mad men’s are,

At random from the truth vainly expressed.

For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,

Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.