{
 "id": "henry-van-dyke-jr/the-ballad-of-the-solemn-ass",
 "title": "The Ballad of the Solemn Ass",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": "Recited at the Century Club, New York: Twelfth Night. 1906",
 "poet": "Henry van Dyke Jr.",
 "poet_slug": "henry-van-dyke-jr",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 151,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1920,
  "venue": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1920)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1920 collected edition. That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume gathers work published from 1897 onward, and which earlier book or magazine printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/henry-van-dyke-jr_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
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   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/buildersotherpoe00vandrich",
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   "https://archive.org/details/musicotherpoems0000henr_c7v6",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsnowfirstcol00vanduoft",
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  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 56,
  "n_stanzas": 14,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 71,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Come all ye good Centurions and wise men of the times,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You’ve made a Poet Laureate, now you must hear his rhymes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Extend your ears and I’ll respond by shortening up my tale:⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Man cannot live by verse alone, he must have cakes and ale.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So while you wait for better things and muse on schnapps and salad,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ll try my Pegasus his wings and sing a little ballad:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A legend of your ancestors, the Wise Men of the East,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who brought among their baggage train a quaint and curious beast.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Their horses were both swift and strong, and we should think it lucky",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If we could buy, by telephone, such horses from Kentucky;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their dromedaries paced along, magnificent and large,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their camels were as stately as if painted by La Farge.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But this amazing little ass was never satisfied,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He made more trouble every day than all the rest beside:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His ears were long, his legs were short, his eyes were bleared and dim,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But nothing in the wide, wide world was good enough for him.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He did not like the way they went, but lifted up his voice",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And said that any other way would be a better choice.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He braced his feet and stood his ground, and made the wise men wait,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While with his heels at all around he did recalcitrate.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It mattered not how fair the land through which the road might run,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He found new causes for complaint with every Morning Sun:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when the shades of twilight fell and all the world grew nappy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They tied him to his Evening Post, but still he was not happy.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He thought his load was far too large, he thought his food was bad,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He thought the Star a poor affair, he thought the Wise Men mad:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He did not like to hear them laugh⁠—’twas childish to be jolly;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And if perchance they sang a hymn⁠—’twas sentimental folly!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So day by day this little beast performed his level best",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To make their life, in work and play, a burden to the rest:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when they laid them down at night, he would not let them sleep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But criticized the Universe with hee-haws loud and deep.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "One evening, as the Wise Men sat before their fire-lit tent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And ate and drank and talked and sang, in grateful merriment,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The solemn donkey butted in, in his most solemn way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And broke the happy meeting up with a portentous bray.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Now by my head,” Balthazar said (his real name was Choate),",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“We’ve had about enough of this! I’ll put it to the vote.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I move the donkey be dismissed; let’s turn him out to grass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And travel on our cheerful way, without the solemn ass.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The vote was aye! and with a whack the Wise Men drove him out;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But still he wanders up and down, and all the world about;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You’ll know him by his long, sad face and supercilious ways,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And likewise by his morning kicks and by his evening brays.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But while we sit at Eagle Roost and make our Twelfth Night cheer,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Full well we know the solemn ass will not disturb us here:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For pleasure rules the roost to-night, by order of the King,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And every one must play his part, and laugh, and likewise sing.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The road of life is long, we know, and often hard to find,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And yet there’s many a pleasant turn for men of cheerful mind:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We’ve done our day’s work honestly, we’ve earned the right to rest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We’ll take a cup of friendship now and spice it with a jest.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A silent health to absent friends, their memories are bright!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A hearty health to all who keep the feast with us to-night!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A health to dear Centuria, oh, may she long abide!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A health, a health to all the world⁠—and the solemn ass, outside!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}