The Angry Exile: Moving the furniture, revisited

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 14 May 2011

Moving the furniture, revisited

So much for my mid-week designs on, er, designs for dealing with the excessively lengthy blogroll here and a general rearranging of the sidebars' furniture. I'd got as far as deciding to put the Orphans of Liberty, both the site and the blogs of the Orphans themselves, down one sidebar and the rest of my regular reads with a few RSS additions down the other, below which would be a few other sections like the Other Interesting Sites and Mainstream Media section as now but in the form of a drop down menu. Of course thanks to Blogger's problems of the last few days I've made precisely two fifths of fuck all progress toward it apart from having got a list of all the blogs and sites I want there and a notional set of sections to put them in.

However, like no doubt many other Blogger bloggers at the moment I'm considering a move to Wordpress. I've actually been toying with the idea for a while since the Intense Debate comments system I use here was actually designed for Wordpress and should play nicer over there. I've never been in the position to get rid off that annoying red note about comments below the banner since I put it there and it gets on my tits every time I look at it. Back when I began blogging I created one here and one at Wordpress, but since I found Blogger to be easy enough to use that the other has been sitting there dormant almost ever since. I've been fiddling with it off and on over the last few weeks trying to learn my way around it again, but it's all a bit half hearted since I can't find a template I like and I understand there's less scope for customisation than with Blogger. Even if that's wrong or out of date info the look of this place has evolved from a standard template into something I'm fairly happy with bar a few little details here and there, and which really only need tweaking a little bit.

So what do I do? Right now I'm trying to tread a middle path. angryexile.wordpress.com exists and now has most of the content from this place moved across to it, though many posts are lacking images and comments are still a headache because over the course of it's life this blog has used three different ones, and this seems to be confusing things. Some Blogger comments are there, many are not, and none of the Intense Debate or the handful from my brief flirtation with Disqus are yet there - I don't even know at the moment if it's possible to move those but I'm hopeful for ID. So for the moment the shutters are still down while I play with the bastard and posts will continue to appear here, though they'll also be duplicated over at AEWP just to be on the safe side.

So for now watch this space. As long as you can still see it and if Blogger satisfies the world that the events of the last few days were a one off and are unlikely to happen again then I'll probably, though not definitely, stay put. If we get any repeats then you'll find me over at the Wordpress version of The Angry Exile. And if I can get that looking the way I want or at least am happy with a permanent move there is a distinct possibility.