"Villanelle" by Roland Leighton

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This poem was written by Roland Leighton shortly before his death in 1915 to his fiancé Vera Brittain. 

Violets from Plug Street Wood,
Sweet I send you over sea.
(It is strange they should be blue,
Blue when his soaked blood was red,
For they grew around his head:
It is strange they should be blue.)

Think what they have meant to me-
Life and Hope and Love and You.
(and you did not see them grow
Where his mangled body lay
Hiding horrors from the day;
Sweetest, it was better so.)

Violets from over sea,
To you dear, far, forgotten land
These I send in memory
Knowing you'll understand.

Sources
~ Oxford University: Roland Aubrey Leighton

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