# need help with two poem titles

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-two-poem-titles/180640>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [June 9, 2003, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-two-poem-titles/180640 "2003-06-09T13:56:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Knighted\_Vorpal\_Sword](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ac91a4/32.png) [@Knighted\_Vorpal\_Sword](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knighted_Vorpal_Sword)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-two-poem-titles/180640/1 "2003-06-09T13:56:11Z")

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There are two poems that I remember reading in either high school or college, and I can’t remember the titles of either one. This is driving me crazy.

1. A poem about a man who seems to have a perfect life, but the poem ends that he goes home and puts a bullet in his head. The only other line I remember is that he’s “imperially slim.”

2. A poem about the perfectly average man - he buys exactly what he should, he has the correct political opinions, he went to war at the proper time. The poem ends with something about if anything had gone wrong (with the person), “we certainly would have heard.”

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**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-two-poem-titles/180640/2 "2003-06-09T14:05:18Z")

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First one is Richar Cory by Edward Arlington Robinson

[http://www.medialab.chalmers.se/guitar/richard.cory.lyr.html](http://www.medialab.chalmers.se/guitar/richard.cory.lyr.html)

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**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-two-poem-titles/180640/3 "2003-06-09T14:13:42Z")

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And the second one is The Unknown Citizen by W. H. Auden

[http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?prmID=1395](http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?prmID=1395)

(Sorry, that’s Richard Cory, not Richar.)