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ogden_1951_hangman.md

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+---
+id:
+aliases: []
+title: The Hangman
+tags:
+  - authorship/other
+  - destiny/permanent
+  - exclude-from-word-count
+  - status/complete
+  - type/media/poetry
+authors:
+  - Maurice Ogden
+year: 1951
+---
+# The Hangman
+
+## 1.
+
+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 on 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, \
+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 raise 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 on 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.
+
+## 2.
+
+The next day's sun looked mildly down \
+On roof and street in our quiet town \
+And, stark and black in the morning air, \
+The gallows-tree on 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 businesslike.
+
+And we cried: "Hangman, have you not done, \
+Yesterday, with the alien 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 the rope when the rope is new."
+
+Then one cried "Murderer!" One cried "Shame!" \
+And into our midst the Hangman came \
+To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he, \
+With him that's 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.
+
+## 3.
+
+The third he took---and we had all heard tell--- \
+Was a usurer and infidel. And: \
+"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 out 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.
+
+## 4.
+
+Then through the town the Hangman came \
+And called in the empty streets 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 him pull down the gallows-tree." \
+And 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 \
+Than you with your coward's hope?" said he, \
+"And where are the others that might have stood \
+Side by your side in the common good?"
+
+"Dead," I whispered: and amiably, \
+"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me;  \
+"First the alien, 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--- \
+And the Hangman strapped me, and no voice there \
+Cried "Stay!" for me in the empty square.