The Builder

Once again, I reprint from "The Projector," this time from Volume 18, No. 2, Spring 1989.

THE BUILDER

An old man traveling a lone highway
Came at evening cold and gray
To a  chasm deep and wide.
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're wasting your strength in 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 the bridge at eventide?"

The builder lifted his old gray head.
"Good friend, in the path I've come," he said,
"There followeth after me today
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm that was as naught to me,
To that fair youth may a pitfall be;
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him."

--Anonymous