The Bridge Builder Poem

“An old man going a lone highway came in the evening, cold and gray, to a chasm vast, both deep and wide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim; the swollen stream was as naught to him;
but he stopped when safe on the farther side and built a bridge to span the tide.
“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near, “you are wasting your strength in labor here; Your journey will end with the closing day, you never again will pass this way.
You’ve crossed the chasm deep and wide;
Why build you this bridge at eventide?”
The laborer 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 which has been naught to me to that young man may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim.
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him. ”
– The Bridge Builder Poem