Richard Cory

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 (1869-1935)

Student Commits Suicide at Pennsylvania School:

ERDENHEIM, Pa. (AP) -- After pledging to improve his falling grades, Shane Halligan ate breakfast with his family, went off to school, and took his own life.

The 11th-grader was an Eagle scout and volunteer firefighter who planned a career in the military. But the poor grades he brought home on his report card Monday led his parents to warn him to focus on school.

"The picture that's emerging is he was despondent over (the fact) his grades are down, his parents are taking appropriate steps to limit extracurricular activities to get the grades up, and he saw the things that he felt were important in his life being taken from him," Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor said.