Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing, And heavy ignorance aloft to fly, Have added feathers to the learned’s wing, And given grace a double majesty.

It is one of the Fair Youth sequence, and the first of the mini-sequence known as the Rival Poet sonnets, thought to be composed some time from 1598 to 1600.

The speaker notes that other poets have appropriated his way of invoking the young man, and this has helped them distribute their poetry, perhaps by being published, or by otherwise finding readers.

The poet's strategy in this sonnet is to portray himself as ignorant and lacking in talent, but the second quatrain in lines 5 and 6 introduces sarcastic mock humility, by the ridiculousness of the image of croaking ("taught the dumb on high to sing"), paired with the image of heavy objects flying about ("heavy ignorance aloft to fly").

It follows the rhyme scheme, abab cdcd efef gg and is composed in iambic pentameter, a metre based on five feet in each line, and two syllables in each foot, accented weak/strong.

They are all "learned" and practicing both art and style, while "the poor speaker's ignorance is twice insisted on, as is his muteness (he was dumb) before he saw the young man.

The effect of the antanaclasis works as a metaphor for the basic meaning of the clause: "the beloved's being and the speaker's art are one and the same thing".

This is disturbing because the subject in the sonnet is one that the persona has found erotically profitable, in part because the other poet may be superior in learning and style.

This question is followed by a mock answer: "The mock answer is that the young man should be prouder of having taught a hitherto dumb admirer to sing, and of having advanced ignorance as high as learning, because these achievements on his part testify more impressively to his originally power than his (slighter) accomplishments with respect to his learned poets — he but mends their style and graces their arts."

He accomplishes this "by first resorting to a country-bumpkin, fairy-tale idiot-son role, presenting himself as a Cinderella, so to speak, raised from the cinders to the skies.

"[3] Towards the end of the second quatrain, Vendler begins to question some of the metaphors and figurative language that Shakespeare has used: "Does the learned's wing need added feathers?

Some suggest he may be George Chapman, Christopher Marlowe, Samuel Daniel, Michael Drayton, Barnabe Barnes, Gervase Markham, or Richard Barnfield.