- 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 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 madmen’s are,
- At random from the truth vainly express’d;
- For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
- Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.