Will Allen Dromgoole – “The Bridge Builder”

Today’s post is a poem entitled “The Bridge Builder” written in 1898 by Will Allen Dromgoole (1860-1934). It’s another entry in “Bread for the Journey”, a journal kept by the father of our dear friend, Heather, over his 90+ years until he passed away in 2024.

Every once in a while, I’ll pick something from there and hope that it resonates with you, my dear readers. The poem’s universality speaks for itself.

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 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 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 eventide?”

The builder lifted his old gray head:
“Good friend, in the path I have come”, he said,
“There followeth after me to-day
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.”

Or, in my case, for her, my dear daughter.