Reflections on God and Religion

THE FIRST BOOK. 11

The tops of the forest, the oak tree in the wood,
The towers in the air, built up toward heaven;
What power helps the sea-foam to boil and well up,
How we see the Ocean swell so sky-high,
Even up to the stars; who drives the provoked sea
Into the dunes, and drowns the people and the cattle,
And all the low land, while the shepherds hide,
Having fled to mountains and rocks, from the howling
And bellowing of the monster Vondel personifies the storm as a "gedroght" (monster or creature), reflecting the 17th-century view of nature's raw, chaotic power., that swallows fleet after fleet.
A dark and thick air, before the rising of the wind,
Warns the sailor, and commands him to strike the sail,
Before the storm raises itself, and storms upon dune and dikes.
The East Indian Hurricane original: "Oostindiaensche Orkaen". A reference to the typhoons encountered by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) ships in the Pacific and Indian Oceans., in the finest part of the day,
With bright sun and sky, first warns the sailor
With a blow, as it flatly, [alas, who would not shudder!]
Like God’s arm and fist, to push the ship to the bottom,
Plummets down from above, and strikes the deck,
And mast, and helmsman’s cabin, and cables into a heap,
Whereupon an abyss gapes, and vomits out foam and waves,
Full of the living and the dead, buried and entombed,
While one finds neither hope nor refuge, outside of God.
How a sailor’s heart leaps when he sails before the wind!
He thanks the wind when the ship, from foreign lands,
Sails into the harbor, on long-desired shores.
The sawmill owner, when his work pleases him,
Thanks the brisk wind, which saws whole forests.
The Lord of the Purmer The "Purmerheer" refers to the wealthy investors or regents of the Purmer, a large lake in North Holland that was drained and turned into a polder in 1622 using windmill power. thanks the wind and watermill,
Which mills water into land, so long hidden in the wet:
And what through wheat and rye reaches a stack of years,
Thanks the wind, which breaks and grinds the grain of Poland The "grain of Poland" refers to the Moedernegotie (Mother Trade), the backbone of the Dutch Golden Age economy, where grain was imported from the Baltic to feed Europe..
The prince of winds sweeps the air, and streams, and regions
Of foul mists and deadly plagues.
So many workings testify to us with certainty
The power of the element, although it is invisible.