The Angry Exile: In Masho veritas?

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, 18 October 2011

In Masho veritas?

Well, if it applies to wine couldn't it apply to The Daily Mash talking here about the 'Occupy' mob's spread from New York to other cities?

... first-time protestor, Roy Hobbs, insisted: "I'm here because I'm sick and tired of all the greed that stops me from getting what I want.

"That's why I've come up with a plan that will solve everything. It involves dividing all the money in the world equally and then waiting to see what happens next."

You know, I really believer that is the plan. I really, really do.

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Bawb · 701 weeks ago

My ol' Swiss Father-in-Law always used to say that if you divided up all the money in the world and distributed it equally, within a year the haves and the have-nots would all be sorted out back to where they were originally. There's quite a bit of truth in that, and me suspect our friend Mr. Roy Hobbs in the article above would be right back down in the gutter after a year.

"The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

1 reply · active 701 weeks ago

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Angry_Exile 90p · 701 weeks ago

Indeed, Bawb, and it's the great failure of that dream of equality, because people just ain't equal and there's no way to make 'em so. But don't worry about Roy Hobbs because he'll be alright. In addition to being a first time protestor he's the Assistant Chief Constable of West Midlands Police, a retired metalworker, a councillor, owner of a hardware shop, head of the English Cricket Board, deputy chairman of the Royal Institute of Chartered Engineers and whatever else The Daily Mash need him to be. :D

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jameshigham · 701 weeks ago

I believe in dividing all the money in the world equitably too. Whatever percentage of the nation's capital was earned by you - that's the percentage you get. Whatever has been saved by me - that's the percentage I get. Sounds pretty equal to me.

1 reply · active 701 weeks ago

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Angry_Exile 90p · 701 weeks ago

Ah, that'd catch some of the protestors out. I think not all of them realise that equitable and equal don't mean quite the same thing. Once again I'm tempted to call for carpet bombing people with dictionaries.

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nisakiman · 701 weeks ago

"...involves dividing all the money in the world equally..."

Well, you must admit that there is a certain beauty in the simplicity of the idea. If it wasn't for the inconvenient fact that people tend to be different, it could even be a good idea. Just like communism, the theory is ok, but it doesn't take into account the fact that some will always be more equal than others.

1 reply · active 701 weeks ago

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Angry_Exile 90p · 701 weeks ago

An even more beautiful idea would be one that would actually work.

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Rational Anarchist · 701 weeks ago

Timmy points out at http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/10/1... that actually, somewhere in the region of 50% of Americans are in the top 1% globally. If they really want to distribute the money equally, they'd surely not want to leave out all the poor and destitute in the third world, and that would mean all of us in the western world becoming a lot poorer.

But that's not what they mean of course - they only want to take things from those who have more than they do - after all, the fact that they have so much more than those in the third world is completely irrelevant...
My recent post Climate Change - why it bugs me

1 reply · active 696 weeks ago

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Angry_Exile 90p · 696 weeks ago

Apologies for this comment going missing. Unfortunately it ended up being mistaken by Intense Debate as spam and more unfortunately I didn't notice until today. You'd have deserved a h/t in the Occupy Everywhere post on Nov 9th which makes a similar point a fortnight after you'd brought it up. :$

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