By Ezra Pound
Come my cantilations,
Let us dump our hatreds into one bunch and be done with them,
Hot sun, clear water, fresh wind,
Let me be free of pavements,
Let me be free of the printers.
Let come beautiful people
Wearing raw silk of good colour,
Let come the graceful speakers,
Let come the ready of wit,
Let come the gay of manner, the insolent and the exulting.
We speak of burnished lakes,
And of dry air, as clear as metal.
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Paul's parents are going to the west coast for a couple of months to visit all the relatives out there, so they came to spend Saturday with us. We had brunch together, dropped Adam off to work at Glen Echo, then went to the Hillwood Museum, where it was extremely warm and sticky in the gardens but lovely as always in the mansion and visitor center. There were several tour groups going through and we caught sections of their docent-led presentations, particularly in the icon room where Marjorie Merriweather Post kept her Faberge and other Russian imperial treasures and in the upstairs bedrooms where we learned that Post had a closet converted to a soundproof bedroom for a son-in-law who snored too loudly. We also went to see the exhibit on Napoleon, Russia, and the War of 1812 in the Dacha.
The Catherine the Great Faberge egg at Hillwood was created for Czar Nicholas II to give to his mother on Easter morning in 1914.
The piano in the French Drawing Room has photos on top of royals and heads of state whom Post had met.
The miniature painting on the left by William Powell Frith shows three of Queen Alexandra's bridesmaids at her marriage to the future King Edward VII in 1902.
Post collected china and porcelain and used it to show her taste off to guests.
This set has different images from the Russian victory in the Napoleonic wars on each plate.
A Faberge brooch with miniatures of Nicholas II and Alexandra and a large sapphire.
There are paintings and photos of Post and her family in nearly every room at Hillwood.
Here I am taking a photo of the wedding crown of Empress Alexandra at her marriage to Nicholas II in 1894.
When we left Hillwood after walking a bit in the gardens, we went to pick Adam up at Glen Echo, got ice cream and lemonade, and walked around the park since my in-laws had never been there. Volunteers are already setting up for the folk festival next weekend. We came back to the house for a while so Adam could walk the neighbor's dog and Daniel could get out of the heat, then we went to California Tortilla for dinner. After Paul's parents went home, we watched several Deep Space Nine episodes -- we're now in the final stretch, the long arc that ends the series.
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