Richard Cory

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from head to crown,
Clean favoured and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
Always a gentleman 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 



How wrong people are, to judge us just from our demeanour......when, the side of ourselves that we reveal to the world, is merely a shade, perhaps a farcical one, of the spectrum of hues that colour us. Each of us has a story to tell - the truths about ourselves that we know in the darkest depths of our hearts, no matter how much we deny them or try to keep them in concealment from the world. We are all Richard Cory(s), envied by others, yet, troubled by our own secrets and facades.