101 Poems, Number 96

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

96: “Richard Cory,” 1897, by Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935)

The first time that I read these lines—

In high school? college?—I was shocked.

I learned a poem undermines

Our expectations. This one knocked

From me my young naïveté.

I saw how poets write of death,

Of inward terror. I could say

The final line just stole my breath.

And Robinson? In later years

I chased him here; I chased him there.

And learned how quiet disappears

In lines so true they scorch the air.

Link to poem.