It may have been the pride in me for aught I know, or just a patronizing whim; But call it freak of fancy, or what not, I cannot hide the hungry face of him.
I keep a scant half-dozen words he said, And every now and then I lose his name; He may be living or he may be dead, But I must have him with me all the same.
I knew it and I knew it all along,-- And felt it once or twice, or thought I did; But only as a glad man feels a song That sounds around a stranger's coffin lid.
I knew it, and he knew it, I believe, But silence held us alien to the end; And I have now no magic to retrieve That year, to stop that hunger for a friend.
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.