Baltic Journey 2 – Ports of the Hanseatic League

Centuries before the European Union a remarkably similar arrangement linked the trading countries of Northern Europe - in particular the Baltic ports – The Hanseatic League. This arangement of powers dependent on maritime trading demonstrated both the effectiveness and domination resulting from such arangements.

Tragedy and prosperity developed hand in hand over future centuries, spawning myths and the arrogance which appears to result almost inevitably from success and hegemony.

Water swirling, water churning

Rolling, roaring, singing, soaring

Graceful, waving, spray arising

Raise the ringing acclamation

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We are here and we are wealthy

Finest linen and brocaded

Finest fleet with guns asunder

Compass and barometer

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Water running, splashing, lashing

We are here. Our ships are splendid

We – aparelled like the lilly

Listen and you’ll make good money

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Water moving, greening, marbelling

Ships that carry hemp and timber

Salted herring, flax and resins

Merchants striding over cobbles

Leagues are covered. Empires born

Jokers play the wharfside births

Hunters seek the forest spaces

Its we who make the trading powers

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Ebbing, flowing, histories, tidings

Coasts are battered by bad news

Ships are lost in stormy waters

Captains lead their crews to death

In the quiet of the centuries

In the burgening of commerce

In the fall of minion kingdoms

In the rise of empires new

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Year by year the trading nations

Have deferred to profiteering

Populations died in cruelty

Through the scemes of strutting fools

Powerful leagues grow rich and perish

Nations fall and seas change shape

In the slence of the seascape

Let us call for sane swift peace

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Water swirling, water churning

Rolling, roaring, singing, soaring,

Graceful waving, spray arising

Profit squandered into loss!