. . . . "1070391472"^^ . . . . "\"The Hangman\" is a poem written by in 1951 and first published in 1954 in Masses and Mainstream magazine under the pseudonym \"Jack Denoya\". Its plot concerns a hangman who arrives in 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. The narrator is then executed by the hangman, as by then there is no one left who will defend him. The poem contains four-line stanzas with the rhyming pattern AABB. The poem is usually cited as an indictment of those who stand idly by while others commit grave evil or injustice, such as during the Holocaust. The story it tells is very similar to that of the famous statement First they came... that has been attributed to the anti-Nazi pastor Martin Niem\u00F6ller as early as 1946. The poem may be interpreted as an attack on McCarthyism."@en . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "right"@en . . . . . . . . . "Excerpt of The Hangman"@en . . . . . . . . "2820"^^ . "The Hangman (poem)"@en . "right"@en . . . . . "9429539"^^ . . "1"^^ . . . "Into our town the Hangman came,\n Smelling of gold and blood and flame.\nAnd he paced our bricks with a diffident air,\nAnd built his frame on the courthouse square.\n\n[...]\n\nAnd innocent though we were, with dread,\nWe passed those eyes of buckshot lead;\nTill one cried: \"Hangman, who is he\nFor whom you raise the gallows-tree?\"\n\nThen a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,\nAnd he gave us a riddle instead of reply:\n\"He who serves me best,\" said he,\n\"Shall earn the rope on the gallows-tree.\"\n\n[...]"@en . . "\"The Hangman\" is a poem written by in 1951 and first published in 1954 in Masses and Mainstream magazine under the pseudonym \"Jack Denoya\". Its plot concerns a hangman who arrives in 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. The narrator is then executed by the hangman, as by then there is no one left who will defend him. The poem contains four-line stanzas with the rhyming pattern AABB."@en . . . . . "\u2014Maurice Ogden"@en .