'Coming from a gloomy court, <br />Place of Israelite resort, <br />This old lamp I've brought with me. <br />Madam, on its panes you'll see <br />The initials K and E.' <br /> <br />'An old lantern brought to me? <br />Ugly, dingy, battered, black!' <br />(Here a lady I suppose <br />Turning up a pretty nose)— <br />'Pray, sir, take the old thing back. <br />I've no taste for bricabrac.' <br /> <br />'Please to mark the letters twain'— <br />(I'm supposed to speak again)— <br />'Graven on the lantern pane. <br />Can you tell me who was she, <br />Mistress of the flowery wreath, <br />And the anagram beneath— <br />The mysterious K E? <br /> <br />'Full a hundred years are gone <br />Since the little beacon shone <br />From a Venice balcony: <br />There, on summer nights, it hung, <br />And her Lovers came and sung <br />To their beautiful K E. <br /> <br />'Hush! in the canal below <br />Don't you hear the plash of oars <br />Underneath the lantern's glow, <br />And a thrilling voice begins <br />To the sound of mandolins? <br />Begins singing of amore <br />And delire and dolore— <br />O the ravishing tenore! <br /> <br />'Lady, do you know the tune? <br />Ah, we all of us have hummed it! <br />I've an old guitar has thrummed it, <br />Under many a changing moon. <br />Shall I try it? Do Re MI . . <br />What is this? Ma foi, the fact is, <br />That my hand is out of practice, <br />And my poor old fiddle cracked is, <br />And a man—I let the truth out,— <br />Who's had almost every tooth out, <br />Cannot sing as once he sung, <br />When he was young as you are young, <br />When he was young and lutes were strung, <br />And love-lamps in the casement hung.'<br /><br />William Makepeace Thackeray<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mrs-katherine-s-lantern/
