Thomas hardy: 'I found her out there'

I found her out there
On a slope few see,
That falls westwardly
To the sharp-edged air,
Where the ocean breaks
On the purple strand,
And the hurricane shakes
The solid land.

I brought her here,
And have laid her to rest
In a noiseless nest
No sea beats near.
She will never be stirred
In her loamy cell
By the waves long heard
And loved so well.

So she does not sleep
By those haunted heights
The Atlantic smites
And the blind gales sweep,
Whence she often would gaze
At Dundagel’s far head,
While the dipping blaze
Dyed her face fire-red;

And would sigh at the tale
Of sunk Lyonnesse,
While a wind-tugged tress
Flapped her cheek like a flail;
Or listen at whiles
With a thought-bound brow
To the murmuring miles
She is far from now.

Yet her shade, maybe,
Will glide underground
Till it catch the sound
Of that western sea
As it swells and sobs
Where she once domiciled,
And joy in its throbs
With the heart of a child.

I have always loved this poem. Its elegaic hauntedness  is about finding as much as losing and this possibility of reconnection with someone lost  ‘out there’ moves me profoundly. It reads as if it was written by someone very, very wise  long ago. I can hear it almost whispered through time.  Love becomes intimately possible again and finding transcends losing. Muse and mused upon become one.

Hardy utters what we all would hope to know one day.