I first heard this, 1943 or '44, Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Chicago. My brothers was going through a V-12 program to become an officer, and we went to the base church with him on a Sunday morning. Some may remember, Eddie Peabody was stationed there, and played his banjo. The Chaplain ended his sermon with this poem.
An old man, going down a lone highway
Came at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm vast and wide and steep,
With waters rolling cold and deep.
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 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 eventide?"
The builder lifted his old gray head.
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,
"There followed after me today
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
The chasm that was as 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
