The Hangman (poem)

"The Hangman" is a children’s poem by Maurice Ogden.

Into our town the hangman came, smelling of gold and blood and flame. He paced our bricks with a different air, and built his frame on the courthouse square.

The scaffold stood by the courthouse side, only as wide as the door was wide with a frame as tall, or a 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 raised the gallows-tree?"

Then a twinkle grew in his buckshot eye and he gave 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 anothers grief at the hangmans 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 hangmans 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 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 business-like.

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, "Do you think I've gone to all this fuss, To hang one man? That's the thing I do. To stretch the rope when the rope is new."

Above our silence a voice cried "Shame!" and into our midst the hangman came; to that mans place, "Do you hold," said he, "With him that was meat for the gallows-tree?"

He laid his hand on that one's arm and we shrank back in quick alarm. We gave him way, and no one spoke, out of fear of the hangmans cloak.

That night we saw with dread surprise the hangmans 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, half way up on the courthouse wall.

The third he took, we had all heard tell, was a usurer..., an 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 our comfort hard and long. "And what concern," he gave us back, "Have you ... for the doomed and black?"

The fifth, the sixth, and we cried again, "Hangman, hangman, is this the man?" "It's a trick", said he, "that we hangman know for easing the trap when the trap springs slow."

And so we ceased and asked now 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 until 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 and called through the empty streets...my name. I looked at the gallows soaring tall and thought ... there's no one left at all

for hanging ... and so he called to me to help take down the gallows-tree. And I went out with right good hope to the hangmans tree and the hangmans rope.

He smiled at me as I came down to the courthouse square...through the silent town. Supple and stretched in his busy hand, was the yellow twist of hempen strand.

He whistled his tune as he tried the trap and it sprang down with a ready snap. 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'm no henchman of yours." I cried. "You lied to me Hangman, foully lied."

Then a twinkle grew in his buckshot eye, "Lied to you...tricked you?" He said "Not I... for I answered straight and told you true. The scaffold was raised for none but you."

"For who has served more faithfully? 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 answered, 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 before stood so alone as I. The Hangman then strapped me...with no voice there to cry "Stay!" ... for me in the empty square.

"... I did no more than you let me do"

The poem contains four-line stanzas with rhyming pattern AABB.

Its plot concerns a hangman who arrives at a town and executes the citizens one by one. As each citizen is executed, the others are afraid to object out of fear that they will be next. Finally there is nobody remaining in the town except the Hangman and the narrator of the poem. A hangman comes to town and kills everyone because of the fact that nobody stopped him. During World War II when Hitler invaded Poland france and Great Britain did not do anything about it because they thought that if they got involved that they would not be in the position to win. As soon as Hitler saw it was easy to take over one country and that nobody would stop him, he got a morale booster to invade all of Europe and be dictator.

The poem can be seen as an indictment of those who stand idly by while others commit grave evil or injustice, such as The Holocaust or McCarthyism.

In 1964 an animated 12-minute film was made by Les Goldman and Paul Julian. Herschel Bernardi narrated. The film was a co-winner of the Silver Sail award at the Locarno International Film Festival in 1964.