The Bridge Builder

By Will Allen Dromgoole[1]

An old man traveling a lone highway

Came at the evening cold and grey,

To a chasm vast and deep and wide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim,

For the sullen stream held no fears for him;

But he turned when he reached the others side,

And builded a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” cried a fellow-pilgrim near,

“You are wasting your strength while building here,

Your journey will end with the ending day,

And you never again will pass this way;

You have crossed the chasm deep and wide,

Why build you this bridge at eventide?”

And the builder raised his old grey head:

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

“There followeth after me today

A youth whose feet will pass this way;

This stream which has been as naught to me,

To that fair-haired boy 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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[1] Will Allen Dromgoole was born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in 1860, daughter of John Easter and Rebecca Mildred (Blanch) Dromgoole. She was graduated from the Clarksville Female Academy, Tennessee in 1876, and then studied law with her father (although the laws of Tennessee did not allow women to practice in those days). She also studied at the New England School of Expression in Boston.  She was appointed assistant engrossing clerk of the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1883 and State Senate in 1885; she was re-elected in 1887.

Ms. Dromgoole’s first published story appeared in Youth’s Companion in 1887. She was a good writer, but it cost her a government job, as the following September 20, 1889 story from the San Jose Mercury tells:

Miss Will Allen Dromgoole, says report, is a literary lady who has cut her official throat with her little pen. Some of her recent magazine sketches of life in the Tennessee Mountains carried a sting to the denizens of that section, and when Miss Dromgoole recently sought an election to a Senate clerkship, a big, rough-bearded Solon from an up county arose and roared out; “She wrote agin the mount’ns! I war be known’st ter it, and I’m agin her!” The Senate sat petrified and Miss Dromgoole incautiously giggled. It sealed her fate. Another hill-country legislator was hoisted to his feet by his indignant colleagues to second the objection. He did it tersely and effectually. “She ‘lowed the wimmen folks went b’arfoot an’ ther men talked a diurlec.  I’m agin anybody as is agin the mount’ns.”  The issue was joined and on the ballot being taken Miss Dromgoole was beaten.

Ms. Dromgoole taught school in Tennessee one year, and one year in Temple, Texas. She founded the Waco Women’s Press Club. During the Great War, she was a warrant officer—perhaps the first woman to hold this rank—in the United States Naval Reserve, lecturing to sailors on patriotic topics. She did not marry, but lived with her father and cared for him until he died, in 1897. Through it all, she continued writing. She was a prolific author; by the time she passed away in 1934 she had published 13 books, 7,500 poems and 5,000 columns of essays—many for the Nashville Banner. Today she is most remembered for the above cited poem.  (Source: Will Allen Dromgoole – geocities.com)