Poem by Arthur Guiterman.
The book this passage comes from is "<span>Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street" by Herman Melville. The passage is not shown, but after doing research, the passage is about how Bartleby is always alone and that his soul is suffering, but not his body. The theme that the author developed from this passage is bondage. </span>
Tantalus was one of the sons of Zeus with a nymbh, which was condemned to an eternal punishment, bound to Tartarus (the divine prison in the Underworld), for several crimes he had commit, among which, revealing forbidden secrets from the Heavens to the humans (as similary did Prometheus) and stealing the food beverage of the Gods (respectively nectar and ambrosia). Before being punished however, he was king of Sipylus in Lydia, and was admitted in the table of the Gods, even though he was not one himself. Therefore being able to enjoy the pleasure usually only did by the Gods.
