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.
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this poem was published in 1935 - before the beginning of WW11, which is when I first thought it was written and it made sense to me. The reference to the Goose-Quill takes us back to a much earlier time when Kings were the absolute rulers. the Five Kings are the fingers of his hand and I believe the King also signed his own fate too.
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