Around the Corner I Have a Friend

by Charles Hanson Towne, 1900


Around the corner I have a friend,

In this great city that has no end;

Yet days go by, and weeks rush on,

And before I know it a year is gone,

And I never see my old friend’s face,

For life is a swift and terrible race.

He knows I like him just as well

As in the days when I rang his bell

And he rang mine. We were younger then,

And now we are busy, tired men:

Tired with playing a foolish game,

Tired with trying to make a name.

“Tomorrow,” I say, “I will call on Jim,

Just to show I am thinking of him.”

But tomorrow comes - and tomorrow goes,

And the distance between us grows and grows.

Around the corner! - yet miles away,

“Here’s a telegram, Sir,

‘Jim died today’”.

And that’s what we get, and deserve in the end.

Around the corner, a vanished friend.