The Bridge Builder

9/9/2013

  As I read this great poem by Dromgoole, I could not help but think we are but bridge builders at Riverside.

    The Bridge Builder

 An old man traveling 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 held no fears for him;
But he turned when safe on the other side,
And builded a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” cried a fellow pilgrim near,
“You’re wasting your time in building here.
Your journey will end with the closing day
You never again will pass this way.
You have crossed the chasm deep and wide,
Why build you this bridge at even-tide?”

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 stream which has been as naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may pitfall be;
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim-
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.”

 ~Will Allen Dromgoole.