The Vineyard

by Rudyard Kipling

　　

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At the eleventh hour he came, But his wages were the same As ours who all day long had trod The wine-press of the Wrath of God. When he shouldered through the lines Of our cropped and mangled vines, His unjaded eye could scan How each hour had marked its man. (Children of the morning-tide With the hosts of noon had died, And our noon contingents lay Dead with twilight's spent array.) Since his back had felt no load , Virtue still in him abode; So he swiftly made his own Those last spoils we had not won. We went home, delivered thence, Grudging him no recompense Till he portioned praise or blame To our works before he came. Till he showed us for our good, Deaf to mirth, and blind to scorn, How we might have best withstood Burdens that he had not born!

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