For Memorial Day I’d like to share with you one of the most beautiful and saddest poems I’ve every read. Even today I debate reading it aloud, because I’m usually choked up by the second stanza. But its history, and the sacrifice it represented for freedom is worth the attempt.
This untitled poem by Violette Szabo was composed during World War 2 before her deployment. Violette was a French resistance espionage agent managed by British intelligence who worked covertly in Nazi-occupied France during World War 2.
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.
You deserve a bit of an explanation of course…