RICHARD CORY

Dashing, charming, suave, eloquent, handsome, svelte, debonair: what more could you ask for in a man? But all the glitters is not gold. There is more than meets the eye. The clothes do not make the man. If it's too good to be true...it probably is.

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