The hand that signed the paper felled a city;
 Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
 Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
 These five kings did a king to death.

 The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder,
 The finger joints are cramped with chalk;
 A goose's quill has put an end to murder
 That put an end to talk.

 The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,
 And famine grew, and locusts came;
 Great is the hand that holds dominion over
 Man by a scribbled name.

 The five kings count the dead but do not soften
 The crusted wound nor pat the brow;
 A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;
 Hands have no tears to flow.

Carrying on with the theme:

From “Twenty Five Poems”, 1936.

I’ve always liked the density of Dylan Thomas’ work. His early and

middle-period poems are wonderfully impenetrable masses of high-flown rhetoric: pretentious, perhaps, in their almost wilful obfuscation, but also possessed of an undeniable power¹. His later poems are air and fire to his original earth and water; while equally dense in their use of allusion and illusion, they trip lightly off the tongue, beguiling the senses while stirring the heart².

Unfortunately, today’s poem falls in neither category, and I have to

confess that it’s not one of my favourites. There are occasions when simplicity is power, but there are also times when it betokens, well, a lack of depth. There’s nothing technically wrong with “The Hand That Signed The Paper”; the basic conceit is well thought of and well executed (if not terribly original); the verse is straightforward and competent. But it remains just that - verse: great poetry it isn’t.

Or is that just me?

— Thomas

Poem #405 on the Minstrels website.

Minstrels Links

Dylan Thomas:
Poem #14, Prologue
Poem #38, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Poem #58, The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower
Poem #138, Fern Hill
Poem #225, Poem In October
Poem #270, Under Milk Wood
Poem #335, After the Funeral (In memory of Ann Jones)
Poem #405, Altarwise by Owl-Light (Stanzas I - IV)
Poem #476, In my craft or sullen art
Poem #568, Especially when the October Wind