Around the Corner I Have a Friend

If we are not very careful about our relationships, life may end up being an exceptionally lonely experience. It is a rare event to truly connect heart to heart with another person; to lose such a friend in death is sad, but to lose them in life through neglect or offense is tragic. The loss of such a friend in life may be the fountainhead of regret and sorrow. I woke up this morning thinking about the following poem.
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"Around the Corner I Have a Friend"
Charles Hanson Towne

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 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. 
"To-morrow," I say, "I will call on Jim 
"Just to show that I'm thinking of him." 
But to-morrow comes -- and to-morrow 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. 

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