The Bridge Builder

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Born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, USA in 1860, Will Allen Dromgoole was a prolific author, writing not only novels and plays but also more than 8,000 poems. She was the writer behind the bestseller, ‘The Island of the Beautiful’ released 1911.

‘The Bridge Builder’ first appeared in 1900 allegedly in a book entitled, ‘A Builder.’ It was later a feature of another book called, ‘Father – An Anthology of Verse’ published by EP Dutton & Company in 1931. The poem is often reprinted owing to its popularity but it is in the religious context that it is frequently quoted.

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Ms Dromgoole died in 1934 at the age of seventy-four. Four years earlier, she was appointed poet laureate of the Poetry Society of the South. 

The Bridge Builder

An old man going a lone highway,

Came at the evening, cold and grey,

To a chasm, vast, 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,” cried 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 evening tide?”

The builder lifted his old grey head;

“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,

“There followed after me to-day,

A youth whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm that has been 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!

There are those who have built bridges that have allowed others of us to cross and for that, we give all of you our profound and humble thanks.

This poem was produced in relation to the article by Alan Smith called ‘To Be A Living Stone for Christ,’ which appeared in the Lux Mundi Sunday Weekly, November 16 2014, Issue 016/14. You can also read the article here.