Today is National Poetry Day. This is my favourite poem. What’s yours?

The life that I have

Is all that I have

And the life that I have

Is yours.

The love that I have

Of the life that I have

Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have

A rest I shall have

Yet death will be but a pause.

For the peace of my years

In the long green grass

Will be yours and yours and yours.

Leo Marks

This poem was written by Leo Marks and used a code poem during World War Two. He wrote it on Christmas Eve 1943 in memory of his girlfriend Ruth who had just been killed in a plane crash in Canada. In March 1944 it was issued by Marks, who worked for Britain’s Special Operations Executive to French SOE agent Violette Szabo, who was eventually captured, tortured and killed by the Nazis.

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