The Angry Exile: Sounds about right.

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

Tuesday 21 July 2009

Sounds about right.

I’ve always loved the cricket, insists everyone.

As England ended a 75-year wait for a test victory against Australia at Lords, absolutely everybody has claimed to be a long-time cricket lover.

The 115 run victory may have surprised the experts, but everybody else is claiming they knew England would win all along.

One supporter said, “I definitely love cricket - those Flintoff brothers Andrew and Freddie have done brilliantly, all the home runs they hit were amazing.”

“And then there were all the conversions they got at the end there, incredible!”

With Ashes mania expected to hit the nation now that it seems we might actually win a series against Australia, long-time cricket lovers have outed themselves in workplaces everywhere.

“It’s funny, I’d never realised how much I love cricket until yesterday,” said one cricket fan.

“I mean, I’ve never been to a game, or watched it on the telly, and I wouldn’t know an England cricketer if he punched me in the face.”

“But it’s clear that subconsciously, I’ve always loved cricket to my very core, because when I heard the score, and that we’d beaten Australia, I couldn’t stop smiling.”

“So from this point on, I am a committed member of England’s fan base.”

“Right up until we lose the next match to Australia.”

It sounds just like me, except I can't be bothered to pretend.

3 comments:

Dick Puddlecote said...: Would have e-mailed this but ...

Been reading you on RSS for a while and reckon you could add expert commentary on this.

I hope you can enlighten us as to how Australia came to be an anti-everything society.

Dick :-); 22 July 2009 at 08:13
Angry Exile said...: The tasering of the petrol sniffer, being just the latest and most horrific controversial taser incident here, is on my mental list of things to blog about, though you've beaten me to the punch and there's not a lot I can add to it other than that there's still a rather paternalistic attitude towards indigenous Australians. The sniffing substance law probably exists because of Aboriginal people being denied booze getting wasted on petrol fumes instead. Naturally the powers that be don't want to look at it as a possible negative effect of alcohol restrictions, partly because they in turn are sometimes brought in at the request of indigenous communities and Elders, and partly because politicians everywhere will instinctively react by banning something else instead of considering more freedom as a solution. Yeah, mental, though hardly unique to Australia.

I hope you can enlighten us as to how Australia came to be an anti-everything society.
Worthy of a fairly long blog, but I've touched on it from time to time. The short version is that Australia is a low level nanny state but because of the history - different colonies that became states on Federation - the level of nannyism and what is being nannied varies depending on where you are.

But it's a fairly low level form of authoritarianism and on a day to day basis it's merely annoying most of the time, occasionally gusting offensive and patronizing - see the one about the Tasmanian "ilLiberal" leader. Yet there's nothing like the variety of semi-enabling and liberty reducing Acts that the British government has passed in the last decade or so, and which according to a paper here has turned the place into the first "soft totalitarian" state.

Might find time at the weekend for longer thoughts on the topic.; 22 July 2009 at 11:08
Dick Puddlecote said...: Cheers AE, very interesting. Ta for your input at my place too.

Is there a link to the 'soft totalitarian state' quote? I seem to remember you mentioning that somewhere before (though I might have just imagined it).

Look forward to your weekend musings. :-); 23 July 2009 at 04:04