Richard Cory: my favorite poem

Back in high school I was bored by most of the poems given to us in litterature class. But this one stood out to me for many years:


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.


It tells a tale about the human condition. The stanzas of this poem reads as if it is being told by one of the peasant class townspeople who admired this polite wealthy rich guy who came to town. It then ends on an abrupt and rather shocking note. It stunned me the first time I read it; I read through the poem again to see if I was overlooking any details that provided foreshadowing to Richard’s suicide, but found none.

This poem tells us that money cannot buy happiness. And even though you may envy someone who has more than you, deep down they could be broken and deeply troubled.