A baby boy was born into a family that desperately wanted a girl, so they simply decided not to name him. Six months later, when parents and baby were staying at a resort, the other vacationers were quite uneasy when cooing over a nameless child, so they convinced the parents to put names they liked into a hat and then ask one of the guests to pull out the winner.
They obliged. The name “Win” won—and when the parents didn’t want to go to the trouble of thinking of a middle name, they asked the man who drew the Win-winner what city he lived in. It was “Arlington”, so the baby now had a middle name. (Aren’t we all glad the man had not been from Apalachicola, Florida!)
Win would never marry, because he fell hopelessly in love with a beautiful young woman named Emma when his older brother, Herman, brought her home to be introduced to the family. Soon Win desperately wanted to marry her, too, but she was smitten with Herman, who was considered the shining star of the family, and a Golden Boy to all who met him.
She married Herman, upsetting Win so greatly that instead of attending the wedding of his brother, he stayed home to write a poem of protest. This was his first creative work of a writing career that would garner him four Pulitzer Prizes in a mere six years. His poems are still enshrined in literary anthologies, including one short poem of only sixteen lines that most of us read before we were out of high school. President Theodore Roosevelt was so impressed with Win’s first volume of poetry that he invited him to dinner at the White House to discuss them.
Herman would die an early death. Win, still desperately in love with Emma, would ask his widowed sister-in-law twice to marry him, but she refused both times. Herman was a hero who had been the envy of all other young men, with a charisma that even in death made Win realize that Emma would never look at him as good enough to be her husband.
Devastated, Win left his small hometown in Maine, where Emma continued to live with her children, and moved to New York where he would begin his writing career. It was at this point that he would find a companion, Richard, who would captivate his mind to such an extent that he would often talk about him to his closest friends, but they would never meet him.
His friends quickly realized that this Richard—“he is never to be called ‘Dick,’” Win warned, “he is too refined for that”— seemed to be a twin of Win’s brother in magnetism and sheer force of personality. Poor Win had always wanted to be called “Edwin,” a name that seemed to have so much more class than “Win.” But his friends laughed and said he would always be just good old “Win” to them.
Win described Richard as more of a god than a friend, just as Win had seen his perfect brother. One of Win’s writer friends pointed out that Herman, with his tragic end at a young age, was right out of a Greek tragedy. Win agreed, and added that he always felt like just one of the lowly commoners gawking at him, as if in the chorus of a Greek tragedy.
What I now must reveal to you is that Win had never met Richard. He had simply summoned him up in his imagination in order to try to reconcile himself with his brilliant brother, who had stolen away Win’s one chance at lasting happiness with the woman he loved.
How lucky for literature that this great poet— (Ed)Win Arlington Robinson—did come to terms with his brother, by penning the only sixteen-line Greek tragedy in English, complete with a modern-day Greek chorus who narrates the tale.
Please indulge yourself —and probably not for the first time—in one of those rare poems that can both grip and break your heart as one of the most simple, yet celebrated, poems in literary history.
RICHARD CORY
Whenever Richard Cory went downtown,
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 in his head.
Elliot writes: I urge you to read Robinson’s two other classic short poems: “Miniver Cheevy” and “Mr. Flood’s Party”. Be sure to notice the poignant two moons Mr. Flood sings to in his lonely, inebriated state. You can easily find both poems online or, if you still remember how, you can go to a lovely old-fashioned library and check out a volume of his poetry.
Email Elliot at huffam@me.com or click here