The Angry Exile: Blogging Marie Celeste.

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

Sunday 5 September 2010

Blogging Marie Celeste.

And that seems to be that, because everything else has been deleted. Again. It was there yesterday and vanished mysteriously at some point in the middle of the night for me, by the looks of it. What did I miss? What is the significance of five days and what was it too long for? Is she moving the blog to another host? Is she hanging up the keyboard? Is this temporary or permanent? Do I change the blogroll? Why the mysterious deletion of the posts that would presumably have shed light on all this? Did I miss something being on AEST? To be blunt, what the fuck's going on? Because from here it looks like the posts have all abandoned blog despite it being perfectly networthy leaving nothing behind but a cryptic message.

5 comments:

Captain Ranty said...: AE,

She originally said that she was fed up and that she was closing down in 5 days time, but later that day she changed her mind.

Nothing mysterious, just blog angst. A kind of despair for what other bloggers were writing about. She posted a particularly savage, and accurate, attack on Mr Guido Fawkes.

CR.; 5 September 2010 at 00:50
Bill Sticker said...: The writing was on her blog. She was getting pretty disillusioned a while back, wrote a 'goodbye' post and changed her mind.

I think she got pretty wound up by what Guido wrote re Hague and decided to shut up shop after a number of us gently reminded her that gossip and tittle tattle was what Guido is all about.

She'll be back. Writing and seeing your ID up there is a kind of drug. One of the most addictive there is.; 5 September 2010 at 01:21
JuliaM said...: I hope she does, she wrote brilliantly (and clearly from the heart).

And who said we all had to agree on everything 100% anyway? That's for the Left...; 5 September 2010 at 03:12
Rob F said...: I was confused, myself.

I can understand blog angst; I just don't understand why she has to delete all her blog posts.

I'm glad Juliette of 'The New Adventures of' fame didn't decide to go the same way recently, despite her disillusionment...; 5 September 2010 at 03:32
Angry Exile said...: I saw the post she did on Guido, though I didn't wholly agree with her and said so. But I'd go along with what Julia says there - who says we have some kind of party line? I don't agree with everything Julia says either but Christ she's a good read. And I know Mummy has said a couple of times that she was kicking it in only to change her mind and start up again, but like RobF I don't understand the blog deletion. The last post I saw was the one when she slagged of Guido, and the next time I look there's just one that says "5 days is too long, bye" which was a bit cryptic, not having seen the one CR mentioned to say she was closing in 5 days. All up to her of course, but since I can't see what was said ...
::shrugs::; 5 September 2010 at 07:29