Sonnet 147

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 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.

My love is like fever, wanting badly

A nurse who will nurse the disease.

It curses the thought of immunity

And courts more suffering, not ease.

My mind, supposedly a doctor,

Frustrated that its precepts were not kept,

Is gone, and I don’t care that desire

With death, not life, has slept.

I don’t have a cure. As I said,

I stopped caring. I may be crazy,

Hallucinating in bed:

My thoughts glare and vary.

I swore you were beautiful and bright,

But you seemed infernal tonight.