I Found her out There by Thomas Hardy — Read

I FOUND her out there / On a slope few see, / That falls westwardly / To the salt-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, / As 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 creep 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.