The Life that I have is all that I have,and the life that I have is yours

[Nannyjacks]

Hi can anyone tell me who wrote this poem

[nicnic]

Leo Marks wrote the poem. It's title is 'Code Poem for the French Resistance.' There's a bit of info on it here...

http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/197.html< /p>

[SteveD]

nicnic's link didn't work for me. Here is the poem:

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
From:
Between Silk and Cyanide
A Codemaker�s Story 1941-1945

[mata hari]

I have heard this poem somewhere before, but I have never read "between cyanide and silk". Did Ernest Hemmingway borrow it in either "A Farewell to Arms" or "For whom the Bell Tolls"?

[heatherglen]

It was recited by Virginia McKenna in the film Carve Her Name With Pride.

[mata hari]

Thanks heatherglen, I knew I'de heard it somewhere before!

[rfhenryuk]

It was written as a basis for her radio code transmissions for Violet Szabo, an SOE agent, played by Virginia McKenna in "Carve her Name with Pride". She )Violet Szabo) was captured and died in a concentration camp I think

[Laurinha]

delete </p> off the end of the link and it will work.

Lx

[mooncaine]

An English man named Leo Marks wrote this, originally for a girl to whom he was attracted, while he was a young man helping Britain's war effort as a secret codes specialist. The young lady was later killed in an air crash, having never known young Leo's poem.

He later gave this poem to Violette Szabo for use as her backup code "key", since poems were easier to remember [although unsafe because the codes based on them were more easily deciphered]. She was only to use this poem if she lost her safer, more complicated code "key". Since he felt such sympathy and fear for the brave woman who would shortly be risking her life every time she sent a coded message, this poem came to mind. She found it touching, as did many of us when we heard it. Sadly, Ms. Szabo was tortured and murdered by the Nazis.

The whole story appears in Leo's excellent book, Between Silk and Cyanide.

An Internet search for the first line, enclosed in quotes, turns up many sites that discuss it. This was apparently a quite popular poem, as it should be. It's touching, sobering, scary and sentimental, all at once.