Remembrance

My Boy Jack

"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!

Rudyard Kipling 1916

My Boy Jack" is a 1916 poem by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling wrote it for Jack Cornwell, the 16 year old youngest recipient of the Victoria Cross who stayed by his post on board the light cruiser HMS Chester at the Battle of Jutland until he died.

Kipling’s son Jack was killed on the Western Front in September 1915. He had only been in France for three weeks and because of his very poor eyesight had initially been rejected by the army. It was only because of the intervention of his influential and famous father that he was subsequently accepted in to the Irish Guards regiment.

Kipling never wrote directly about the loss of his son.

.

We will remember them.

Ronnie
xx