Theophile Gautier - Unknown Shores

Okay, my starsick beauty! -
blue jeans and tilting breasts,
child of Canaverel -
where would you like to go?

Shall we set course for Mars,
or Venus; green sea,
Aldebaran the golden,
or Tycho Brahe's Nova,
the moons of Sagitta,
or Vega's colonies?

School-minching, bronze Diane,
bane of the launching-pads-
may not ask again:
wherever you would go

my rocket-head can turn
at will to your command-
top luck the flowers of snow
that growon Pluto, or
capella-wards, to pluck
roots of asphodel?

I may not ask again:
where would you like to go?

Have you a star; she says,
O any faithful sun
Where love does not eclipse?
The countdown slurs and slips).
-Ah child, if that star shines,
is in chartless skies,

I do not know of such!
But come, where will you go?

Theophile Gautier

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