The Haunter

I really enjoy reading this poem. I think that it is about a woman who has died and is left now to protect her lover in the after life. The poem has a fairly sad feel about it, which is no surprise as the title of the poem is enough to show that it is to do with death. The text used in the stanza's seems to be very sad as it has a strong feeling of longing. For example she longs to answer him when he speaks to her and she wishes to join him on his travels when she obviously cannot as she is dead. 'But cannot answer the words he lifts me - only listen thereto!' and 'How I would like to join in his journeys'
Everyone knows what it is like to want to do something but be unable to do so, this way the reader can relate to the poem and it's narrator, this helps them to get a strong feel of the emotion in the poem.

He mentions that the spirit is a 'faithful phantom' more then once through out the poem. As the poem could possibly be about how Hardy's wife died, it is possible that he repeats the word 'Faithful' so that it not only sticks in your head but almost as if to reasure himself that his wife will be faithful to him even in the afterlife.