When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d, Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate; For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

It is part of the Fair Youth sequence (which comprises sonnets 1-126 in the accepted numbering stemming from the first edition in 1609).

In the sonnet, the speaker bemoans his status as an outcast and failure but feels better upon thinking of his beloved.

As noted by Bernhard Frank, Sonnet 29 includes two distinct sections with the Speaker explaining his current depressed state of mind in the first octave and then conjuring what appears to be a happier image in the last sestet.

As Frank explains in his article Shakespeare repeats the word "state" three times throughout the poem with each being a reference to something different.

[5] He specifically points out stressed syllables, "troub-", "deaf", and "heav'n", saying they are "jarringly close together" and that "the 'heav'n with' is probably the most violent example in the sonnets of a trochee without a preceding verse-pause...

A reversal of the third ictus (as shown above) is normally preceded by at least a slight intonational break, which "deaf heaven" does not allow.

Peter Groves calls this a "harsh mapping", and recommends that in performance "the best thing to do is to prolong the subordinated S-syllable [here, "deaf"] ... the effect of this is to throw a degree of emphasis on it".

"[9] Mabillard speculated that the sonnet 29 may have written in 1592 when an outbreak of plague caused the theatres of London to be closed, thereby depriving Shakespeare of his income while at the same time the poet Robert Greene had denounced him in his poem A Groats-worth of Wit as an talentless upset.

[9] She speculated that the line "With what I most enjoy contented least" refers to Shakespeare's damaged reputation and his unemployed status.

As the poem moves from the octave to the sestet, Frank makes note of the Speaker's "radical movement from despair to alert".

This sudden emotional jump (along with the pattern of the "state") displays the Speaker's "wild mood swings".

"The poet-lover in sonnet 29 admits up front that the fruits of his inward experience are primarily his own, though not his own in terms of everafter fame...

Expanding on that notion, Paul Ramsey claims: "Sonnet 29 says that God disappoints and that the young man redeems".