In Helen Vendler's The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets, it is noted — "By inserting himself somehow as cause or agent of the relation between the young man and the mistress, the speaker preserves a connection with the young man which [...] is the overriding motive of this poem".(Vendler, p. 220) The idea that the fair youth and the poet are "one" is common in the sonnets; for example, it was also asserted in Sonnets 36, 39, and 40. A closer look at Sonnet 36 illustrates this point further, "In our two loves there is but one respect".(Greenblatt pg. 1766) A possible reason the speaker emphasizes the oneness between himself and the youth is to align himself with the youth as opposed to his mistress.
