The garden and the sea

 James Allen he lived down in Bowlish

And he planted near Darshill docks

Where the water flows down, from Shepton Town

And into the sewery locks

And he collected these Ukrainian snow drops

Beautiful flowers like pale faces at bus stops

These Caucuses brides who were carried on the tide

Of the Crimean War over fields of crops

Which soldier with his face buried in the mud

Looked up to see their beautiful faces

While cannon balls fell all around

Red blood pooled in all of the places

What hope was there in their black despair

To see these white flowers just growing there

Up from the soil, the good earth of their toil

Like a spring of hope in the valley of death's lair

And so back they came as bulbs in pockets

Who knows what horrors their porters had seen

Back to shine brightly like light bulbs in sockets

Though not yet invented the electrical gleam

And growing them hardy and growing them strong

James Allen adapted them and brought them along

In his greenhouse, his shed, his garden wall's shade

Damp like the valleys of the Crimean parade

And with powder white hands from the flour mill

Dust on his jacket, green fingers of skill

He picked and he reasoned, discerned and he judged

Used tricks of the season, through forest paths trudged

And he cared and he reared them in the English style

To be well adapted to winters in these British isles

Until these Ukrainian flowers learnt to love these lands

Brought here by soldiers, tended by gardener's loving hands

So look around you in February when the snowdrops bloom

And think of their journey from the hands of doom

And hold a light brightly, like their fair heads shine white

And look into the future with hope and fine fight