The Angry Exile: Moving the furniture around.

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, 2 January 2010

Moving the furniture around.

Due to the increasing length of the blogroll I'm going to be doing a little furniture rearranging, starting with a couple of new widgets and a three column layout which I've been meaning to play with for a while. So far I'm not sure I like it. It feels a little cramped so expect to see various changes until I settle down on something or reach a stage where I just can't be bothered to bugger around with it anymore. Feel free to throw opinions or advice at me in the comments but don't be offended if I end up screaming in frustration and reverting to a standard Blugger template.

UPDATE: Well here's one change I'm not happy with. I found this content advisory thingie at Uncle Bill's, and having just added him to the blogroll it seemed like a good time to half inch it.

Aside from the point that it links to a dating site, which shouldn't bother me but for some reason I can't explain does anyway, I'm disappointed in only getting a 17 rating. Clearly I need to drop the c-bomb a lot more and mention bestiality, devil worship, two girls one cup, and that George W. Bush is my person of the year. Bear with me while I check...
... nope, still the same. Apparently that rating is

...determined based on the presence of the following words:

fucking (34x) fuck (22x) gun (8x) bastards (7x) crap (5x) fags (4x) kill (3x) cunts (2x) slap (1x)

'Slap'? I could be talking about Mrs Exile's make up. 'Fucking' and 'fuck' I'm certain are both underscored, probably missing a zero on the end each. Much the same could be said for 'cunts' and 'bastards' while I feel 'kill' and 'crap' may be exaggerated. Oddest of all is fags - does that push my rating up because of anti-smoking hysteria or homophobia or both? Either way, fuck it, it's coming off the sidebar. I still think there probably ought to be a better content warning that I have so I may put it into the header image.

UPDATE 2: That bloody tag cloud is going to be a pain in the arse.

3 comments:

Bill Sticker said...: Considering ditching the dumb thing myself. In terms of interactivity it's about as pointless as the proverbial broken pencil.; 2 January 2010 at 12:53
JuliaM said...: The thre column layout looks fine to me. Some seem to set the middle column too narrow, but this one doesn't look cramped at all.

'crap' and 'slap'? Good lord...; 2 January 2010 at 22:51
Angry Exile said...: Thanks for the feedback. It's growing on me slowly. I still have a few tweaks in mind, such as making it a little wider to accommodate column margins a few px wider. And since that would mean redoing the header image I'm pretty much decided on adding a content warning if I do.; 3 January 2010 at 02:42