In researching material for a presentation, I came across “The Bridge Builder” - a poem written by Will Allen Dromgoole (1860 - 1934).  She authored 7500 poems, 5000 essays and thirteen books from her home in Murfreesboro, TN.

As with many classic works, the language may be dated, but the principles are as applicable today as when they were written 100 years ago. Are you a bridge builder?

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;
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 strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again will pass this way;
You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide -
Why build you this bridge at the evening 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 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 this bridge for him.”