Silver Bird

C. H. Manuel

O now I am a silver bird:
 And I am dark and many-souled
 Who loves green sunny palms, or cold;
And relishes in one sweet word
 What takes two epics to have told.

I love pure taste, or mixed; and bred
 On what is not, nor sound nor smell,
  I love all this but not too well
To be sweet wine and honey fed
 And hear sweet music from a shell.

And sisters of my soul, twin-born
 Like sun and moon, or good and evil,
  Haunt me; and one I put to scorn
With golden bugles of the morn,
 And one with dark horns of the devil.