The Bridge Builder - by Will Allen Dromgoole

An old man going down a lone highway,
Came in the evening cold and gray,
To a chasm vast and deep and wide,
Through which was flowing a mighty tide.
The old man crossed in that twilight dim;
That swollen stream held no fears to him;
But he turned when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span that tide.
'Old man,' said a fellow traveler 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 this bridge at the chasm wide?'
The builder lifted his old gray head,
'Good friend, on the path I have come,' he said,
'There follows after me this day,
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
This swollen stream which was naught to me,
To that fair-haired lad may a pitfall be;
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.'