Stranica 84 [84]
OCR
JEG Ka ES RIVER BLANTÁTKON -BELT Among all these pictures of memory, the one that most affects the tender heart is the vision of lovely Evelyn Byrd, the eldest daughter of the second William, whose gentle spirit seems to haunt the garden yet. Her charm and beauty captivated not only the colony, but England; at eighteen she was presented at court and became the toast of the nobility. Tradition tells that she was wooed and won by Charles Mordaunt, Lord Peterborough, but her father broke off the match and brought her home to pine and die. One thinks of her in slender, slowly-fading loveliness, wandering through the box-bordered paths in her flowered gown and highheeled silken shoes, and wonders if her thoughts were those that Amy Lowell has so poignantly expressed in ‘‘Patterns”’: ‘“T walk down the garden paths And all the daffodils Are blowing, and the bright blue squills. I walk down the garden paths In my stiff brocaded gown. With my powdered hair and jeweled fan I, too, am a rare pattern. As I wander down The garden paths. My dress is richly figured And my train Makes a pink and silver stain On the gravel and the thrift Of the borders. Just a plate of current fashion, Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes, Not a softness anywhere about me. Only whalebone and brocade. And I sink on a seat in the shade Of a lime tree. For my passion Wars against the stiff brocade. The daffodils and squills Flutter in the breeze As they please And I weep So the beautiful Evelyn must have thought, one can fancy, as [51]
