The Bridge Builder
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A poem by Will Allen Dromgoole
THE BRIDGE BUILDER
- An old man, going a lone highway,
- Came at the evening cold and gray,
- To a chasm, vast and deep and wide,
- Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
- The old man crossed in the twilight dim-
- That sullen stream had no fears for him;
- But he turned, when he reached the other side,
- And built a bridge to span the tide.
- "Old man," said a fellow pilgrim near,
- "You are wasting strength in building here.
- Your journey will end with the ending day;
- You never again must pass this way.
- You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide,
- Why build you 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.
- This 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."
