- published: 17 Jan 2013
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A lantern is a portable lighting device or mounted light fixture used to illuminate broad areas. Lanterns may also be used for signaling, as 'torches', or as general light sources outdoors (such as camping). Low light level varieties are used for decoration. The term "lantern" is also used more generically to mean a 'light source' or the enclosure for a light source. Examples are glass pane enclosed street lights, or the housing for the top lamp and lens section of a lighthouse.
Lanterns are first spoken of by Theopompus, a Greek comic poet, and Empedocles of Agrigentum. Lanterns were used by the ancients in augury. The only known representation of an ancient Egyptian lantern probably is not much different from those spoken of by John the Evangelist in John 18:3 from the New Testament, where the party of men which went out of Jerusalem to apprehend Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane is described as being provided “with lanterns and torches.”
The simplest technology used is the candle lantern. Candles give only a weak light, and must be protected from wind to prevent flickering or complete extinguishment. A typical candle lantern is a metal box or cylinder with glass or mica side panels and an opening or ventilated cover on the top. A primitive form of candle lantern, made from white horn and wood and called a lanthorn, was first made in the time of King Alfred of England.
She likes Bob Seger and lightning at night, yeah she's got some problems but hell, so do I. I could see from California those big hazel eyes that got harder to forget every time that I tried. And you know, from three thousand miles away she could never understand what I'm trying to say, that tomorrow's much too late, but if you ask there's still a place for you back home. I've spent too many years getting boxed in the ears but that porchlight still burns on, and after all those winter nights I tried to stay out of sight, that porchlight still burns on. And like my grandfathers first, I am a travelling man, so I packed up my things, shook my old man's hand. I may have been scared, I may not have had a plan, I may have given up but I never ever ran. Well I've learned to let go, to not hold on so tight. To step back from the fireflies and just enjoy the light. Sometimes the jar gets cloudy, the glass tarnished with spite. Enjoy the lanterns in our lives, our future's far too bright to let them die. The young man living with regrets in his head becomes the old man who was never able to move ahead. The young man living with regrets in his head becomes the old man forgotten and alone when he's dead.