The Angry Exile: A happy ex-pat, but also an Angry Exile

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Saturday 16 August 2008

A happy ex-pat, but also an Angry Exile

I think I should start this blog by saying that as much as the state of affairs in the UK depresses me I'm still quite fond of the place, and also that as much as I love it here in Australia I'm not blind to its faults. Nor were my reasons for emigrating confined to feeling that the UK was fast becoming a shithole run by a bunch of self serving power crazed tossers who could only be replaced by a slightly different bunch of self serving power crazed tossers. It's fair to say that politicians are broadly the same the world over and I didn't really expect Australia to buck the trend a great deal in that respect. In fact my ending up living in Australia has as much to do with knowing that my wife wanted to be here as anything else, but it didn't take long for me to appreciate the place for other reasons. Better weather for one, though here in Melbourne it can be at least as unpredictable as in the UK. Warmer generally, but it speaks volumes that the rest of Australia takes the piss out of the weather in Victoria and the way that Victorians talk weather almost as much as the Poms. And having been lucky enough to have done some traveling here, including a drive from the southern coast to Darwin in the north, I've become fascinated with this astonishing country.

However, that's not really what this blog is going to be about. The thing is that I just don't miss Britain. Family and friends, yes, but the UK itself I miss slightly less than a bad dose of flu. Is that sad? Certainly it seems to be unusual in an ex-pat, and weirdly I experience feelings of guilt for not being homesick rather than the occasional pangs of homesickness that seems to be the norm for Poms in Australia. I can't say I didn't shed a tear when I got on the plane because saying goodbye to family at the airport is the toughest thing I've had to do, but looking out of the window as the plane took off all I could think was "thank fuck for that".

I wish I did miss the UK and when asked by Aussies what it's like I can think of dozens of reasons for visiting, dozens of things to do there and dozens of places worth seeing. In my opinion the UK is a fantastic place to visit... but I wouldn't want to live there anymore. Not with the nanny state looking over my shoulder wagging a disapproving finger all the bloody time and helping itself to half the contents of my wallet supposedly for my own good. Not with ID cards and DNA databases and surveillance and monitoring and regulations all inflicted on an innocent majority for their own good. Not with an ever growing army of parasitic little pricks administering and enforcing and kissing each others arses to get ahead. Don't get me wrong, Australia is no libertarian utopia and I'll be an Angry Exile about that as well from time to time. But mostly I'll be lamenting anything and everything I come across that makes me say thank Christ we're out of there.