Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 6
Setting the boat afloat泛舟
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 6 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.
江遠天低襯。舟行岸趁移。薄雲橫似素。踈雨散如絲。灘險水流疾。峯多山盡遲。沈吟費翹首。正是望鄕時。
The river is far, and the sky touches it low; the boat goes on, and the banks follow and shift. Thin clouds slant across like white silk, and the sparse rain scatters like thread. The rapids are rough and the current swift, and the peaks are many, so the mountains are slow to come to an end. Sunk in chanting, I put out my strength to lift my head, for it is just the time to look toward my old home.