Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 2
Matching the Rhymes of Elder Hyemun's Eight Songs of Sudasa Temple — The Basin Pond次韻惠文長老水多寺八詠 盆池
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 2 The collected writings of Yi Gyubo of Goryeo, gathered and cut in woodblock by his son Yi Ham in 1241 and revised and enlarged by his grandson Yi Ikbae in 1251. It holds poems and rhapsodies, memorials and reports sent up to the king, records written for temples and pagodas, stele and tomb inscriptions, letters and prefaces, and the state letters that passed to and from the Mongols during the invasions. The Lay of King Dongmyeong, which sings the founder of Goguryeo, stands in volume 3 of the first collection, and the daily life of a man who called himself the White Cloud Layman — with his wine, his zither and his verse — fills the later collection. The book closes with the last poem he wrote as his eyes failed and he laid down the brush, and with the dirge and tomb inscription others made for him after his death.
湖池空有去來潮。打岸無端破寂寥。爭似淺淸盆底水。只栽蘆葦聽蕭蕭。
In lakes and ponds the tides come and go to no purpose, beating the banks for no reason and breaking the stillness. How can that match the shallow, clear water at the bottom of a basin? I only plant reeds there and listen to their desolate sound.