| 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, | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| 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. |