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TWO LIVES. PART 1: 10 by WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD

First Line: NEXT DAY I MET MY CLASSES, - BUT OUR THEME
Last Line: AND DAUGHTER OF THE HOUSE OF TANTALUS.

Next day I met my classes, -- but our theme
Was not the garden of Alcinous,
Nor Hector tossing up the timorous
Boy near the mother, startled at the gleam
Of bristling helmet, nor the flamy dream
Of pregnant Hecuba, nor Helen's fate
To watch the warriors from the Scaean gate,
Nor Agamemnon nor Scamander stream;
Was not of Stoa nor of Academe,
Nor the Ten Thousand's "O the sea, the sea --
Thalassa, Thalassa!" Not of Greek trireme
At Salamis, nor of Thermopylae --
But of the hereditary Oedipus
And daughter of the House of Tantalus.



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