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.

If this be friendship--that one broken hour
(O fragile link in all the loving years!)
Can cast our hearts asunder, Time appears
Frightful indeed, since all our vaunted power,
Wherewith we built high hope, like some strong tower,
Crumbles to dust, where earthly passion leers.
What of our laughter? Aye, what of our tears
That should have only watered Friendship's flower?
If this be friendship, I can never know
Again the magic faith I boasted of;
One deed of mine has crushed the house of love,
And every stone to its old place must go.
Shame be to our endurance if we killed
The sinews that can help us to rebuild!

Three days I heard them grieve when I lay dead, 
(It was so strange to me that they should weep!) 
Tall candles burned about me in the dark, 
And a great crucifix was on my breast, 
And a great silence filled the lonesome room.         
I heard one whisper, “Lo! the dawn is breaking, 
And he has lost the wonder of the day.” 
Another came whom I had loved on earth, 
And kissed my brow and brushed my dampened hair. 
Softly she spoke: “Oh, that he should not see         
The April that his spirit bathed in! Birds 
Are singing in the orchard, and the grass 
That soon will cover him is growing green. 
The daisies whiten on the emerald hills, 
And the immortal magic that he loved         
Wakens again—and he has fallen asleep.” 
Another said: “Last night I saw the moon 
Like a tremendous lantern shine in heaven, 
And I could only think of him—and sob. 
For I remembered evenings wonderful         
When he was faint with Life’s sad loveliness, 
And watched the silver ribbons wandering far 
Along the shore, and out upon the sea. 
Oh, I remembered how he loved the world, 
The sighing ocean and the flaming stars,         
The everlasting glamour God has given— 
His tapestries that wrap the earth’s wide room. 
I minded me of mornings filled with rain 
When he would sit and listen to the sound 
As if it were lost music from the spheres.         
He loved the crocus and the hawthorn-hedge, 
He loved the shining gold of buttercups, 
And the low droning of the drowsy bees 
That boomed across the meadows. He was glad 
At dawn or sundown; glad when Autumn came         
With her worn livery and scarlet crown, 
And glad when Winter rocked the earth to rest. 
Strange that he sleeps today when Life is young, 
And the wild banners of the Spring are blowing 
With green inscriptions of the old delight.”         
I heard them whisper in the quiet room. 
I longed to open then my sealèd eyes, 
And tell them of the glory that was mine. 
There was no darkness where my spirit flew, 
There was no night beyond the teeming world.         
Their April was like winter where I roamed; 
Their flowers were like stones where now I fared. 
Earth’s day! it was as if I had not known 
What sunlight meant!… Yea, even as they grieved 
For all that I had lost in their pale place,         
I swung beyond the borders of the sky, 
And floated through the clouds, myself the air, 
Myself the ether, yet a matchless being 
Whom God had snatched from penury and pain 
To draw across the barricades of heaven.         
I climb beyond the sun, beyond the moon; 
In flight on flight I touched the highest star; 
I plunged to regions where the Spring is born, 
Myself (I asked not how) the April wind, 
Myself the elements that are of God.         
Up flowery stairways of eternity 
I whirled in wonder and untrammeled joy, 
An atom, yet a portion of His dream— 
His dream that knows no end…. 

                        I was the rain,         
I was the dawn, I was the purple east, 
I was the moonlight on enchanted nights, 
(Yet time was lost to me); I was a flower 
For one to pluck who loved me; I was bliss, 
And rapture, splendid moments of delight;         
And I was prayer, and solitude, and hope; 
And always, always, always I was love. 
I tore asunder flimsy doors of time, 
And through the windows of my soul’s new sight 
I saw beyond the ultimate bounds of space.         
I was all things that I had loved on earth— 
The very moonbeam in that quiet room, 
The very sunlight one had dreamed I lost, 
The soul of the returning April grass, 
The spirit of the evening and the dawn,         
The perfume in unnumbered hawthorn-blooms. 
There was no shadow on my perfect peace, 
No knowledge that was hidden from my heart. 
I learned what music meant; I read the years; 
I found where rainbows hide, where tears begin;         
I trod the precincts of things yet unborn. 
Yea, while I found all wisdom (being dead), 
They grieved for me … I should have grieved for them!