{
 "id": "c-s-lewis/the-ass",
 "title": "The Ass",
 "ordinal": "XXVII",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "C. S. Lewis",
 "poet_slug": "c-s-lewis",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Spirits in Bondage",
 "book_slug": "spirits-in-bondage",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 24,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1919,
  "venue": "Spirits in Bondage (1919)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/spiritsinbondage00lewirich",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2003"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/c-s-lewis_poetry",
  "file": "spirits-in-bondage-chapter-27.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2003",
   "https://archive.org/details/spiritsinbondage00lewirich",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/101865124"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 16,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 44,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I woke and rose and slipt away",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the heathery hills in the morning grey.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In a field where the dew lay cold and deep",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I met an ass, new-roused from sleep.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I stroked his nose and I tickled his ears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And spoke soft words to quiet his fears.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "His eyes stared into the eyes of me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he kissed my hands of his courtesy.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“O big, brown brother out of the waste,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How do thistles for breakfast taste?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“And do you rejoice in the dawn divine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a heart that is glad no less than mine?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“For, brother, the depth of your gentle eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is strange and mystic as the skies:",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“What are the thoughts that grope behind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down in the mist of a donkey mind?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Can it be true, as the wise men tell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That you are a mask of God as well,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“And, as in us, so in you no less",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Speaks the eternal Loveliness,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“And words of the lips that all things know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Among the thoughts of a donkey go?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“However it be, O four-foot brother,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fair to-day is the earth, our mother.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“God send you peace and delight thereof,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all green meat of the waste you love,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“And guard you well from violent men",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who’d put you back in the shafts again.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But the ass had far too wise a head",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To answer one of the things I said,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So he twitched his fair ears up and down",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And turned to nuzzle his shoulder brown.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}