The life that I have - Leo Marks

I found this poem today which was read at a dear friend's funeral . It seemed appropriate on this night of remembrance .

The Life That I Have

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

Some information about this lovely poem :

In the Second World War, famous poems were used to encrypt messages. This was, however, found to be insecure because enemy cryptographers were able to locate the original from published sources.

Leo Marks countered this by using his own written creations. The Life That I Have was an original poem composed on Christmas Eve 1943 and was originally written by Marks in memory of his girlfriend Ruth, who had just died in a plane crash in Canada.

On 24 March 1944, the poem was issued by Marks to Violette Szabo, a French agent of Special Operations Executive who was eventually captured, tortured and killed by the Nazis.