While speechless and bewildered thus he gazed,
  And dropped his load of fagots on the ground,
Quoth Brother Timothy:  “Be not amazed
  That where you left a donkey should be found
A poor Franciscan friar, half-starved and crazed,
  Standing demure and with a halter bound;
But set me free, and hear the piteous story
Of Brother Timothy of Casal-Maggiore.

“I am a sinful man, although you see
  I wear the consecrated cowl and cape;
You never owned an ass, but you owned me,
  Changed and transformed from my own natural shape
All for the deadly sin of gluttony,
  From which I could not otherwise escape,
Than by this penance, dieting on grass,
And being worked and beaten as an ass.

“Think of the ignominy I endured;
  Think of the miserable life I led,
The toil and blows to which I was inured,
  My wretched lodging in a windy shed,
My scanty fare so grudgingly procured,
  The damp and musty straw that formed my bed! 
But, having done this penance for my sins,
My life as man and monk again begins.”

The simple Gilbert, hearing words like these,
  Was conscience-stricken, and fell down apace
Before the friar upon his bended knees,
  And with a suppliant voice implored his grace;
And the good monk, now very much at ease,
  Granted him pardon with a smiling face,
Nor could refuse to be that night his guest,
It being late, and he in need of rest.

Upon a hillside, where the olive thrives,
  With figures painted on its white-washed walls,
The cottage stood; and near the humming hives
  Made murmurs as of far-off waterfalls;
A place where those who love secluded lives
  Might live content, and, free from noise and brawls,
Like Claudian’s Old Man of Verona here
Measure by fruits the slow-revolving year.

And, coming to this cottage of content
  They found his children, and the buxom wench
His wife, Dame Cicely, and his father, bent
  With years and labor, seated on a bench,
Repeating over some obscure event
  In the old wars of Milanese and French;
All welcomed the Franciscan, with a sense
Of sacred awe and humble reverence.

When Gilbert told them what had come to pass,
  How beyond question, cavil, or surmise,
Good Brother Timothy had been their ass,
  You should have seen the wonder in their eyes;
You should have heard them cry, “Alas! alas! 
  Have heard their lamentations and their sighs! 
For all believed the story, and began
To see a saint in this afflicted man.

Forthwith there was prepared a grand repast,
  To satisfy the craving of the friar
After so rigid and prolonged a fast;
  The bustling housewife stirred the kitchen fire;
Then her two barnyard fowls, her best and last,
  Were put to death, at her express desire,
And served up with a salad in a bowl,
And flasks of country wine to crown the whole.