Richard Cory
By Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935)

Wherever 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 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.

Background
Edwin Arlington Robinson became the backdrop for many of Robinson's poems. Robinson described his childhood as stark and unhappy; he once wrote in a letter to Amy Lowell that he remembered wondering why he had been born at the age of six. After high school, Robinson spent two years studying at Harvard University as a special student and his first poems were published in the Harvard Advocate.

Paraphrase
Richard Cory goes to the center of the town.
Every pedestrian stares at him from the sidewalk.
He is a good man from head to feet
He has a neat looks and he also has a perfect figure.

Richard Cory is wearing formal clothes when he goes to downtown
He is a very well-mannered man.
But he still trembles when he talks.
He has a word “Good-morning,” in greeting people and he is sparkling when he move.

He is the wealthiest man and the powerful one but he is not rich at the life-core of himself.
He is wonderfully trained with his elegance.
It is a normal thing that he can get all the people want. Giving the people a hope of being him, to make people feel that they can