Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 3
Visiting the Reverend Ga of the Outer Cloister, Using an Old Poet's Rhymes from the Wall訪外院可上人。用壁上古人韻。
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.
方丈蕭然古樹邊。一龕燈火一爐煙。老僧日用何須問。客至淸談客去眠。
The abbot's room stands forlorn beside an old tree, with nothing but the lamp of one niche and the smoke of one brazier. Why ask how the old monk gets through his day? When a guest comes he talks clear talk; when the guest goes, he sleeps.