---
title: The Hangman
tags:
  - authorship/other
  - exclude-from-word-count
  - status/complete
  - type/media/poetry
authors:
  - Maurice Ogden
year: 1951
up: "[[poetry]]"
---
# 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.