Charles Hanson Towne Poems

I had a friend who went away
Over the distant sea,
But hill and tide can never hide
His gentle face from me.
...

The sun has gone, and from the ferryboat
That like a golden worm crawls through the night,
I watch the myriad stars that round me float,
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Deep in the night I heard
The rain's mysterious word.
(It was as if an old love spoke, a dead love sobbed and stirred).
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It was so hard to say good-bye,
To drift apart from you;
But harder still to live the lie
That swept the long years through.
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Like moonstones drooping from a fair queen's ears
The pale lights seem--
White gems that shimmer when the dark appears
And the old dream--
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This was my dream in May--to have one bloom,
Fragrant with apple-scent and Springtide rain,
Live thro' the bleakness of the midnight gloom,
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Unto a soul there came the spectre Strife,
To teach him of the bitterness of life;
And then came Grief, to mock his old-time peace,
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Lord, I am glad for the great gift of living –
Glad for Thy Days of sun and of rain;
Grateful for joy, with an endless thanksgiving,
...

There came a whisper in the night,
A little cry across the years;
And I who heard, in deep affright,
Awakened with unnumbered fears.
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Here in the furnace city, in the humid air they faint,
God's pallid poor, His people, with scarcely space for breath:
...