Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 3
At Cheonsu Temple, Writing a Palindrome Poem by Chance天壽寺偶書廻文
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 3 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.
深庵夜寂靜談玄。冷篆香殘斷穗煙。心似月淸肌似鶴。愔愔入妙養天全。
Deep in the hermitage the night is still, and we talk of hidden principles; the incense has cooled in its seal-script coil, and the wick that is left breaks off its smoke. The mind is clear as the moon, the flesh like a crane's: still and still, entering the subtle, nourishing heaven whole.
Interlinear notes 1
二首
Two poems.
秋雲斷影寒凝榻。夜雨殘聲暗滴簷。幽枕一燈靑灺落。夢酣空檻半垂簾。
The autumn cloud cuts off its shadow and congeals coldly on the bench; the night rain with the sound it has left drips secretly on the eaves. By the quiet pillow one lamp lets fall its blue flower of flame; at the empty railing where the dream has ripened the blind hangs half drawn.