The Bridge Builder is a famous poem written and first published in 1900 by Will Allen Dromgoole.  While I had heard this poem before, I had forgotten its simple but profound message - until I heard it read at a funeral this week.  It speaks volumes about what the deceased father must have meant to his children who were there celebrating his life and his love for them.  It bears repeating here - this time from the heart of a father and mother (my wife and me) whose last week or two has been spent preparing to send three children back off to college.  

As you might expect, our three children are important to us.  They represent our future in that, when our time in this world is gone and we are enjoying our eternal reward, we will be alive not only in Heaven, but also in the hearts and lives of these whom we have loved and cared for along the way.  Because of this, my sadness at this now familiar time of year (helping them pack for college) is tempered by the joy at being able to see my children venture out and make their mark in this world.  Any part Mrs. Vickie and I can play in helping them accomplish this is only a labor of love. 

Here is Mr. Dromgoole’s poem in its entirety.

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 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."

 
 


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