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 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 your 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 evening tide?"
		The builder lifted his old grey 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."

			Will Allen Dromgoole

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