Villanelle

Violets from Plug Street Wood,

Sweet, I send you oversea.

(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 oversea,

To your dear, far, forgetting land

These I send in memory

Knowing you will understand