On a stair I stood

On a stair I stood by Pierre de Ronsard (English version by Humbert Wolfe) Lately as dreamung on a stair I stood you passed me by, and, by looking on my face blinded my eyes with the immediate grace of unanticipated neighbourhood As lighting splits the clouds, my heart and blood split with your beauty, and began to race, now ice, now fever,shattered in their place by that unparalleled beatitude And if you hand in passing had not beckoned your whiter hand than is the swan's white daughter Helen, your eyes had wounded me to death But your hand saved me in the mortal second and your triumphant eyes the moment after revived their captive with an alms of breath