O Captain! No Captain! You can't leave us marooned, and abandon,
You can't, with your saddest and gloomiest departure, make us forlorn!
You can't urge us to rely, "A darkest and longest night fell at a foggy, cloudy noon!"
We too can't accept the sourest Bane, that was less than a year ago a sweetest Boon!
O Captain! No Captain! You can't depart just before the victory vessel is ashore,
You can't, when you should soar at the highest altitude, lie like a log on the floor!
You can't compel us to recite an elegy while the chorus is rehearsing a Triumph Song,
You can't go so early, or we will wail and our arch rivals will revel and grow strong!
O Captain! No Captain! Time can't be so cruel so as to separate you from us,
Ah! Mother India can't bear to be bereaved of another Vikram Sarabhai or Bose!
Thus, O Captain! Do wake up at this instant to assure this to us all:
"I had an urgent meeting with God with regard to our Country's safety and integrity,
And, I will soon alight from the IAF Mi-17V5 helicopter with His missives celestial,
To join duty with more gallantry, devotion, allegiance, patriotism and sincerity!"
N. B. This poem, inspired by Walt Whitman's elegy, "O Captain! My Captain" is dedicated to late General Bipin Rawat, India's first CDS (Chief of Defence Staff) who, along with his wife Madhulika Rawat, an Army Brigadier, and ten others perished when an Indian Air Force (IAF) Mi-17V5 helicopter carrying them crashed into a heavily wooded area of the Coonoor ghat in the Nilgiris in western Tamil Nadu on Wednesday afternoon, at about 12.20 pm on 8th December,2021.
Copyright: Dr. Shankar D Mishra Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India 09.12.2021
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