3 Poems by a Pirate
Reading time: 2 minutes
There is a Danish poet called Piet Hein.
His name sounds strange to Dutchmen because it is so familiar. We have our own Piet Hein, and he was a pirate.
It turns out the Danish poet is a direct descendant of our Piet Hein who lived in the 17th century. He is famous because on September 8th, 1628 he captured a fleet of Spanish ships, just after they left the port of Havana in Cuba.
It was a great catch: the ships were full of silver and oranges, worth € 500 million in today’s money. There is even a children’s song to commemorate this event. I learned it as a child.
It translates roughly as: “Piet Hein, his name is small, but his actions are great, for he has conquered the silver fleet”.
In those days, governments gave captains a license to capture enemy ships for profit. They were called privateers. You could say they were legal pirates. For the Spaniards, they were just pirates of course.
After the battle Piet Hein behaved like a gentleman: he gave enough food to the Spanish sailors to reach Havana by foot.
The Spanish admiral who lost the silver fleet was beheaded in Sevilla for losing the fleet. Piet Hein died in battle a year later, hit by a cannonball.
As I told you, the Danish poet is a descendant of the famous pirate. He was also an interesting character. He studied philosophy and theoretical physics, and at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts, and was a designer, a scientist, and a poet.
He said: “Art is the solution to problems which cannot be formulated clearly before they have been solved". Profound, but not too profound.
He called his Poems Grooks, and they are famous all over Scandinavia, apparently. In this poem, he (the Danish poet, not the pirate) gives us good advice.
A Psychological Tip
Whenever you're called on to make up your mind,
and you're hampered by not having any,
the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find,
is simply by spinning a penny.
No - not so that chance shall decide the affair
while you're passively standing there moping;
but the moment the penny is up in the air,
you suddenly know what you're hoping
Another one:
Those Who Know
Those who always
know what’s best
are
a universal pest.
And finally:
Prayer
Sun that givest all things birth
Shine on everything on earth!
If that's too much to demand
Shine at least on this our land!
If even that's too much for thee
Shine at any rate on me.
Okay, just one more, because you insist!
Saturation
The heavens are draining,
it’s raining and raining,
and everything couldn’t be wetter,
and things are so bad
that we ought to be glad:
because now they can only get better.
I found these poems here.