diff --git a/lib/rouge/lexers/markdown.rb b/lib/rouge/lexers/markdown.rb
index a0e5fd0176..d9e368a14e 100644
--- a/lib/rouge/lexers/markdown.rb
+++ b/lib/rouge/lexers/markdown.rb
@@ -102,7 +102,7 @@ def html
         end
 
         # links and images
-        rule %r/(!?\[)(#{edot}*?)(\])(?=[\[(])/ do
+        rule %r/(!?\[)(#{edot}*?|[^\]]*?)(\])(?=[\[(])/ do
           groups Punctuation, Name::Variable, Punctuation
           push :link
         end
diff --git a/spec/visual/samples/markdown b/spec/visual/samples/markdown
index 42f992e900..be2a700002 100644
--- a/spec/visual/samples/markdown
+++ b/spec/visual/samples/markdown
@@ -1091,3 +1091,9 @@ $ echo "Sample feature output"
 [This is a link to a TOML section `[with brackets]` (and backticks)](example.com)
 [This is a link to a TOML section `[[with double brackets]]` (and backticks)](example.com)
 [This is not a link `with backticks`] (example.com)
+
+This link has text before it, [it's over two (lines),
+has (parens too)](example.com), and text after it.
+
+[this is not a
+link]