My Boy Jack by Rudyard Kipling

John (Jack) Kipling

Platoon Commander

Lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion, Irish Guards

missing in September 1915, the Battle of Loos

World War I

Age 18 plus one day

“Have you news of my boy Jack?”
Not this tide.
“When d’you think that he’ll come back?”
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

Has any one else had word of him?”
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

“Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?”
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind —
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!