A Literary Reminder

Remember "The Hangman" by Ogden Nash? Read the excerpt (complete text here); feel the vibrations.

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."