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.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim,
The sullen stream had no fear for him;
but he turned when safe on the other side
and built a bridge to span the tide.
"Old man", said a fellow pilgrim near,
"You are wasting your strength with
building here; your journey will end
with the ending day. You never again
will pass this way. You’ve crossed the
chasm, deep and wide, why build a
bridge at evening tide?"
The builder lifted his old gray head;
"Good friend in the path I have come",
he said, "there followed after me today
a youth whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm that has been as 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 this bridge for him!"
-- Will Allen Dromgoole (1860-1934), Writer
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