On the Ninth Day of the Second Month of the Muo Year, Seeing Off Bak Hwango on His Way South Together with Jeon Ije, I Drew the Rhyme-Word Gu (舊)戊午二月九日。同全履之餞朴還古之南。得舊字。
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 · 99 Chinese characters · reading time 1 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 7 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.
For four and twenty years amid wind and dust
we became one dragon and three profitable friends.
What we held in our hearts we entrusted to song and poem,
and our high spirit we granted to cup and wine.
Li Bai in his madness made a thousand pieces;
Liu Ling, sodden drunk, took five measures.
We appointed a fair, fair day of spring
and, seeking the blossoms, joined hands together.
The spring light has not failed me:
already the yellow, gold-bright willows have come out.
Casting me off, where can you bear to go?
It is as though my hands had lost their left and right.
How should I lightly hear the words of parting?
Clear tears wet my sleeve.
Gangnam — on which side does it lie?
Far off, peaks that run on to join the sky.
With a single whip your going shape grows distant;
will you think of me and turn your head?
Come early, early, while spring is left,
and with one laugh let us talk of old days again.