NAY, BUT I FANCY SOMEHOW, YEAR BY YEAR—1880
The theme of this poem establishes its approximate date, and though it may possibly have been written in the summer of 1880, more probably it belongs to the little cluster of poems for Fanny Osbourne that were offered to her by Stevenson prior to their marriage in May.
The continuation and growth of their love was for Stevenson a fixed conviction that he incorporated into many of the poems written for his wife. Here it takes form in lines that are preceded by phrases referring directly to the hardships of Stevenson's present and his immediate past. The "my land" is California, and the sea, that Pacific which was to encompass the closing years of Stevenson's life. The poem ends with two lines, notable in their connotation. In "Till all the plain be quickened with the moon," there is the suggestion of romantic love, and in the final line we have in "the lit windows," the thought of domestic life, of the happiness of home.
The sonnet form here adopted is one that Stevenson had used, though not very often, in
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