Strange but true: My mother recited the E.A. Robinson poem loudly and repeatedly as she was giving birth to me. (I don't remember this as I was very young at the time, but she's told me the story several times.) I expect that she wanted her child to have the positive traits of Richard Corey (whenever he went downtown, all the people looked up at him). I do not identify with the character (except for the part about being "imperially slim"; I do not own a factory; I do not plan to ever "put a bullet through my head," as a very believable gypsy fortune teller once told me that I was destined to die on the gallows. - Mark Roffe