The Bridge Builder

[bakri60]

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;

The sullen stream had no fears 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 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.”


Will Allen Dromgoogle