The Bridge Builder by William Allen Dromgoole

The Bridge Builder

An old man, going a lone highway,
Came at evening, cold and gray;
To a chasm, vast and deep and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed the twilight dim—
That sullen stream had no fears for him;
But he turned, when he had reached the other side,
He built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near,
“You are wasting strength building here,
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again will pass this way.
You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide,
Why build up the bridge at the eventide?”

The builder lifted his old gray head.
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said.
“There followeth after me today
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
The chasm that has been naught to me
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.”

——William Allen Dromgoole