The Bridge Builder

THE BRIDGE BUILDER

By Will Allen Dromgoole

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 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 will never again pass this way;

You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide,

Why build this 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 this fair-haired youth may a pitfall be;

He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;

Good friend, I am building this bridge for him!”

There is no loophole your neighbors need you.

His servant, Wade Martin Hughes, Sr. Kyfingers@aol.com