RICHARD CORY It’s not hard to see what inspired two poets to write something about this man and his life, and the end of his life. News to me to discover yesterday that the poem was written two centuries ago, in the late 1800’s with the land of dreams now booming into the twentieth century and roaring as it were with the ‘20’s. A man of empire it is noted, born to empire, and wealth that came for granted. It’s an imaginative figure no doubt, one that caught on with the poet, and one that appealed to the poet for that mysterious contradiction by which he lived his live and ended it. And today it is no different, even if today you have less of them, and more of the other type who was not born to it but born to be chasing after it. It’s not easy to say if there were ages before these when men were more respectable or more grandiose and less ambitious, one hardly imagines so. Man is man through the ages, a despicable sort, and a greedy and selfish sort that will prey on man in order to assert himself over man and establish himself as a master and have man serve him as a slave. It is a desire to be God perhaps, or a desire to compete, or to prove yourself more than the next one, greater than. And to secure your kingdom the only way you can: by creating a state of subjection by which your fellow man can glorify you and despise himself. And recognize you for being superior to him. All these thoughts run through your mind when you see a man setting himself up above others, and ruling from the top of that tower he has built for himself, looking down on the world. So many of them now, but so few, if you count all the men in the world. And you must think the greatest will be least and the last will be first. And the tables will be turned one day, perhaps not in your life time, but perhaps in a life time you can remember. As it was with this man who was born to this time and lived it as best he could. I know very little of him, he is long gone, but he speaks to me still I think. And he speaks to us still. And he lives still in his way, as an artist lives. For only an artist could have done what he did with his life, and use it the way he did for his raw material. And this thing the poet must admire, for the poet is like him, and the artist. And he must express himself too the way he did, and do with his life what he did with his. That way you will live forever. Yet I see there are no poets now, and no heroes. No rich men. These are all little wannabe rich men who hoard miserly amounts to themselves. While the riches of the world go free yet. As the people of the world. Richard Cory, man of style, man of grace and class. Man about town he was, and man of the world, who gave his life at last for a thing he could not believe in. And denied it the thing he could not yet, even then, find within himself to give: His self respect.
Posted on: Thu, 17 Oct 2013 11:22:19 +0000
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