Roaming Again at the Thatched Hall in the Western Suburb復遊西郊草堂
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) 東國李相國集 · Yi Gyubo · Compiled 1241 (Goryeo, 28th year of King Gojong); revised and enlarged 1251 · 1 passages · 100 Chinese characters · reading time 1 min
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.
The first sun shines on a short-lived glow of cloud
and a long wind rolls away the lingering mist
Looking all about, glad that it has newly cleared
I merely stroll beside the grove
The Maker of things is truly hard to reckon
and dark clouds all at once spread in disorder
Lightning draws out a snake of gold
and the Thunder God rages again and again
A boy comes to tell me
to enter the walls before the rain
I say: within heaven and earth
this floating life is truly like lodging as a guest
Here and there there is no true house
and one stays with another as the will inclines
Why long so stubbornly for the dust of Luoyang
and turn my head, cramped, toward the road back?
I trade for wine and tip up a single jug
and in my breast there is no petty matter
I lie down as if toppled under the front eaves
and over all the trees the blue mist darkens