The James River Plantation 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, wander- 

 ing through the box-bordered paths in her flowered gown and high- 

 heeled silken shoes, and wonders if her thoughts were those that 

 Amy Lowell has so poignantly expressed in "Patterns" : 



"I 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] 



