Around the Corner
Around the corner I have a friend,
In this great city that has no end,
Yet the days go by and weeks rush on,
And before I know it, a year is gone.
And I never see my old friends 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 but we were younger then,
And now we are busy, tired men.
Tired of playing a foolish game,
Tired of trying to make a name.
“Tomorrow” I say! “I will call on Jim
Just to show that I’m thinking of him,”
But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes,
And 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.
-Charles Hanson Towne
Charles Hanson Towne was born in 1877 in Louisville, Kentucky, United States of America. At three years of age, he moved with his family to New York. At eleven years of age, he published the “Unique Monthly,” a magazine by and for children. Over the span of his career, he was an editor for several magazines, including “Cosmopolitan,” “Smart Set,” and “Harper’s Bazaar.” He was also a novelist, a dramatist (playwright), an essayist, a songwriter, and a poet. His autobiography is “So Far, So Good” (1945). Charles Hanson Towne passed on in 1949.
Around the corner I have a friend,
In this great city that has no end,
Yet the days go by and weeks rush on,
And before I know it, a year is gone.
And I never see my old friends 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 but we were younger then,
And now we are busy, tired men.
Tired of playing a foolish game,
Tired of trying to make a name.
“Tomorrow” I say! “I will call on Jim
Just to show that I’m thinking of him,”
But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes,
And 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.
-Charles Hanson Towne
Charles Hanson Towne was born in 1877 in Louisville, Kentucky, United States of America. At three years of age, he moved with his family to New York. At eleven years of age, he published the “Unique Monthly,” a magazine by and for children. Over the span of his career, he was an editor for several magazines, including “Cosmopolitan,” “Smart Set,” and “Harper’s Bazaar.” He was also a novelist, a dramatist (playwright), an essayist, a songwriter, and a poet. His autobiography is “So Far, So Good” (1945). Charles Hanson Towne passed on in 1949.
