Napoleon and Josephine [pp. 713-718]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
713
The long and glossy lashes, hung
A feathery screen before their arrowy glance.
Her arching brows were shaded well,
Yet open and serene.
And jetty ringlets waved upon her polished cheek,
Thro' which the blood did flush from her young heart.
And on her ebon hair, a simple cap
Of silken net she wore-'twas white, with downy fringe.
Methought her little hand was in my own,
Yet held so timidly
That she had not perceived my touch;
But as I gazed upon her form,
The pressure imperceptibly increased,
Until the blood did mantle in her cheek.
Then, suddenly, she seized my hand
And strove to loose my grasp;
But, in the act, our hands united grew,
And vows were interchanged.
A thought, in winged guise,
Came flitting round and through my brain
In antics wild and strange,
And whispering softly said:
"The mystery of dreams'tis mine to solve.
'Thy daughter plucked thy silvery hairs,
'And gave them to the breeze.
'Thy wife did kindly smooth thy care-worn brow.'
Thus Age and Woe are bid to stay their hands,
And youth and love to live for thee.
'The maiden in the fire
' Who fondly decked thy daughter,'
Was once beloved by thee,
And loved thee in return.
'The flames that intervened,'
WVere those who interposed, and severed sacred vows.
' The maiden angling in the brook,
'WVho baited not her hook for thee,
'But caught another fish,'
Is one for whom thy lonely heart did throb,
Who might have been thy bride,
Had not thy fa tering spirit failed.
'The stars that glittered in the east,'
Were woman's radiant eyes;
But all their glory Drought not day to thee.
'The rosy dawn zame blushing in the west,
'Two suns in harmony illumed the sky,' —
Thy fate, and that of some fair western maid
Shall soon, like them, be blended into one.
'The feathery clouds that threw a transient mist
'Before their dazzling disks,' are but
The fleeting shades that dim the path of love;
For she'who wore the snow white net
Upon her raven hair,' will be thy destiny.
But when thou wilt be blessed,
Or where, or who the maiden is,
I leave for you to learn, The world is wide before thee, go thy way."
STEPS OF A DANCE.
Thloinet Arbeau, at Langres, in 1588, printed a curiouts treatise entitled Orchesography, in which he was
the first to note the steps of a dance in the same manncr as that of music.
NAPOLEON AND JOSEPHINE.
Napoleon, son of Charles and Letitia Bonaparte,
was born at Ajaccio, in Corsica, on 15th August
1769; and died at St. Helena on 5th May 1821.
His father, a man of abilities died in Corsica, in 1785,
and his mother, at Rome, in 1836. Her maiden name
was Miss Romalini, sister of Cardinal Fesch. She
was a superior woman; and the mother of thirteen
children at the age of thirty, when she became a widow.
Napoleon's four brothers and three sisters who grew
up were
Joseph, who became King of Spain.
Lucian, who became Prince of Canino.
Louis, who became King of Holland.
Jerome, who became King of Westphalia.
Pauline, who first married Gen. Le Clerc, and afterwards prince of Borghdse.
Caroline, who married Murat, afterwards King of
Naples, and now styled Countess of Le Panto.
Mary Ann Eliza, who married Bacciocchi.
In the spring of 1796 Napoleon married Josephine
the widow of Alexander de Beauharnais who was
guillotined in 1794, in the reign of Robespierre.
Eugene, who married the daughter of the King of
Bavaria, and who became Viceroy of Italy;-and
Hortense, who married Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland-were the only children Josephine ever had.
Josephine was Miss Tascher, a Creole, born in Martinico in 1763; married to Beauharnais in 1779, and
to Napoleon in 1796; was divorced from the latter in
1809; died at Malmaison on 29th May 1814, and was
buried in the village churchyard at Rue].
Her superior sense;-her elegant manners and affectionate heart;-her love of justice and her boundless
charity-endeared her to the whole nation. These,and her mournful fall from the most elevated sphere
that woman ever moved in, and which she bore with
graceful fortitude and resignation,-have enrolled her
in history among the most celebrated and lamented beings that any age has produced.
After death had canonized her name and sealed her
destinies on this terraqueous globe, more than twenty
thousand persons-attracted by an affectionate remembrance of her virtues-visited her remains as they laid
in state.
EUGENE AND HORTENSE
TO
JOSEPHINE
are the simple but touching words on the pure white
marble slab that adorns her grave.
Josephine was a being modelled in the happiest
prodigality of nature; and formed for all the tender
offices of connubial love. Her matchless charms foiled at once the poet's fancy, the painter's power, and
the sculptor's skill. She seemed ever young and vernal as the morn. Grace was in her motion; symmetry in her form, and music in her voice The odorouls purple of the rose adorned her cheek; and her
soft blue eye was as the azure sky that trembles through
a cloud of purest white. She practised the refinements
of honor, and imitated the graces of the gods. Whenlike some Naiad or some Grace —she strolled through
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