Appearance | Lost | Poetry | Pride | Self

RICHARD CORY
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich — yes,
richer than a king —
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place./So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night.
Went home and put a bullet through his head. Edwin Arlington Robinson