Again, Written and Sent for the Stone Terrace of the White Lotus Society又寄題白蓮社石臺
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 · 56 Chinese characters · reading time 0.5 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 8 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.
I envy you, who long ago framed the White Lotus lodge
and say yourself that its streams and hills are first in all four quarters.
The empty garden where the fruit has ripened is the monkeys' livelihood,
and the hidden valley deep in pines is the cranes' home.
Heaven opened the ancient cliff, and a thousand fathoms stand sheer;
a dragon spat out a numinous spring, and one thread of it runs long.
The rite over, I climb the terrace and sit at ease:
how should a single mote defile these bowels of ice?
Interlinear notes 2
師結白蓮社於功德山前。有石臺。
The monk framed the White Lotus Society in front of Mount Gongdeok, and there is a stone terrace there.
師言社前有泉。四時不渴。世傳有龍。
The monk said that in front of the society there is a spring that does not dry up in any season, and that the world hands down that there is a dragon in it.