The Bridge

An old man going a lone highway
Came at the evening cold and gray
To a chasm vast and deep and wide;

The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fears 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 time with building here.
You never again will pass this way
Your journey will end with the closing day;
You have crossed the chasm deep and wide;

Why build you this bridge at eventide?"
The builder lifted his old gray head
"Good friend in the way that I've come", he said,

"There followeth after me today
A youth whose feet must pass this way,
This stream that has been as naught to me
To the fair-haired youth might a pitfall be.

He, too, must cross in the twilight dim:
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him."