Over the Beeches

OVER the beeches now the sunlit moon
No more remote or silver than their stems
Whitens against the March-blue afternoon,
Proving no party to those theorems
Which figure sap essential to a spring:
A dozen springs a year instead of one
Brighten upon that face of stone to bring
The breathless renaissance of light alone.
Not in these twigs whose fingers sheathed and smoothed
Restrain until the appointed tick of time
The long-awaiting delicate and toothed
Flutter of leaves that move in lines like rhyme —
Not in these trees is beauty’s spring more new
Than on those mountains where green never grew.