Shakespeare's Sonnets (1923) Yale/Text/Sonnet 147
For other versions of this work, see Sonnet 147 (Shakespeare).
147
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. 4
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. 8
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; 12
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
6 kept: followed
7 approve: prove that
8 which physic did except: (Desire) which objected to the physic (of Reason)