A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919/Riddles, R.F.C.

by John Drinkwater

RIDDLES, R.F.C.^[1]

(1916)

HE was a boy of April beauty; one
Who had not tried the world; who, while the sun
Flamed yet upon the eastern sky, was done.

Time would have brought him in her patient ways—
So his young beauty spoke—to prosperous days,
To fullness of authority and praise.

He would not wait so long. A boy, he spent
His boy's dear life for England. Be content:
No honour of age had been more excellent.

John Drinkwater

1. Lieutenant S. G. Ridley, Royal Flying Corps, sacrificed his life in the Egyptian desert in an attempt to save a comrade. He was twenty years of age.