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."
Will Allen
Dromgoole
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