Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 6
Travelling at Dusk by the River's Head江頭暮行
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.
路抱長川遠。雲低曠野平。天寒征鴈苦。沙漲宿鷗驚。鬼火林間碧。漁燈雨外明。歸舟晚未泊。鵶軋櫓猶鳴。
The road holds the long stream and runs far; the clouds hang low and the wide plain lies flat. The sky is cold, and the migrating geese suffer; the sand has risen, and the roosting gulls take fright. Goblin-fires glow blue among the woods; a fisherman's lamp shines out beyond the rain. The homing boat has not moored though it is late, and creak by creak the oars are sounding still.