I have posted this is the past, but it seems like something that should be considered as we start this new year. I first heard this recited in 1943, in the chapel of the Great Lakes Navy Training Center in Chicago. My brother was enrolled in a V-12 program there,and we went up for a weekend visit. The Chaplain used it in his sermon. Also that Sunday, we had listened to a banjo player, Eddie Peabody, for many years on the radio, and he was also stationed there and played during the service. Have never forgotten the weekend or the poem. Makes one wonder, what are we, today, building for our children, grand children, and great grandchildren?
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 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 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 evening tide?"
The builder 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, 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."
