Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 10
Chance Verses at Gyeonpo犬浦偶吟
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 10 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.
無端馬上換星霜。望闕思家倍感傷。紅日落時天杳杳。白雲缺處水蒼蒼。雨晴草色連空綠。風暖梅花度嶺香。薄宦江涯良悒悒。春光何况攪離膓。
Without reason, on horseback, the years and seasons change; gazing toward the palace and thinking of home, my heart is doubly hurt. When the red sun sets the sky is far and dim, and where the white clouds break open the water is blue. The rain has cleared, and the color of the grass runs green into the sky; the wind is warm, and the plum blossoms are fragrant over the ridge. In a low office here by the river I am truly stifled— how much more when the light of spring shakes the bowels of parting.