The Angry Exile: My flabber is gasted

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

Friday, 15 April 2011

My flabber is gasted

I'm sure I'm not the only one feeling a bit downcast at goings on in LPUK at the moment. Whether it's coincidental or linked I don't know, but I'd been wondering why the LPUK blog has been absorbed into the party site and why Looking For A Voice, the personal blog of the new(ish) party leader Andrew Withers (AKA Guthrum if I recall) has become viewable by invite only. This morning I read this at Anna Raccoon's and this on LPUK.org, and I can't help but wonder. I'm not going to go into it all - if either of my readers are interested they'll either know already or follow the links and read it for themselves - and I'm not going to take sides except to say that Anna Raccoon so clearly feels aggrieved that I can't help but sympathise. Beyond a denial in a comment on the second of those links Andrew Withers has yet to put his side of the story out there that I've seen, so until he or LPUK have anything further I guess we wait and see and make up minds as and when.

What I will say is that it's all very depressing and unedifying. LPUK is a very young party and this seems to be a hell of a case of birthing pains. People are already wondering if it will survive and I'm wondering the same thing. Doesn't matter how much is true and how much is a misunderstanding or whatever, with such a tiny party there's a real danger that enough people will just turn their backs on it for it to go from being a micro-party to an ex-party. If it turns out that there's truth to the allegations I expect that risk to be quite high, and that would be a great shame. I'm not a member and I don't do anything here for LPUK apart from mention them now and then and have links to the blog and the party site on the sidebar, but I liked a lot of the manifesto and I supported the ideals. Above all else I think it's a good thing for the UK to have a party for libertarians to get behind (despite the contradiction involved) and to promote libertarianism to those used to thinking in terms of left and right. Not much of that all important promotion is going to be going on at the moment, or if it is it's optimistic to think that it'll be done as well as it would otherwise.

I dunno, maybe it's actually a good thing that LPUK is still so small. I'm not suggesting all this be covered up - far from it - but escaping wider attention while it resolves all this might be the way LPUK can survive and grow.

P.S. - I am about to send the link to Looking For A Voice and the LPUK blog off to the suspended animation room. This has nothing to do with what's gone on and is purely because neither are live blogs at the moment, or if they are they can't be visited. I need to do some blogroll maintenance anyway and this might be the spur for it.