Reading Du Mu's Poems with Two Great Masters of Cheontae, and Giving Them This Poem與天台兩大士。讀杜牧詩。以詩贈之。
晝臥一床上。紅日射虛幌。有僧來扣門。啄木敲鏗響。起揖携登堂。出語各淸亮。綠頂寒山高。碧瞳秋水爽。袖出紫微詩。欲與詰其疑。兹詩苦深峻。諒非吾輩知。譬如淸江色。淨淥同瑠璃。傍觀信可愛。入泳迷津涯。又如大廈中。墻壁輝髹彤。芝栖與雲楶。映日爭玲瓏。外可悅壯麗。內實眩西東。東西猶且眩。奧室焉能窮。又如霜夜寒。皎月掛氷盤。淸光如可攬。仰之不易攀。我性若狂醒。於學無所精。口吃語未穩。講詠多訛聲。三謝不得已。强欲探其味。昔日所未曉。爲君眞抉髓。非我能曉子。子實曉吾意。
By day I lay upon a single couch, and the red sun shot through the empty curtain. Some monk came and knocked at the door, ringing sharply as a woodpecker tapping. I rose, bowed, and led them up to the hall, and every word that came out was clear and bright. Their blue-shaven crowns were high as Hanshan (寒山), their blue pupils cool as autumn water. From a sleeve they drew out the poems of Ziwei (紫微), to weigh their doubts about them together with me. These poems are exceedingly deep and steep, truly not what our sort can know. They are like the clear light of a river, pure and green as glass: seen from the bank it is lovely indeed, but go in and swim and you lose both ford and shore. Or like the inside of a great house, its walls shining with red lacquer, its purlins figured with magic fungus and its brackets with clouds, vying in brilliance as the sun strikes them: from outside one may delight in the grandeur, but within one is truly dizzy as to east and west. If even east and west make one dizzy, how shall one come to the end of the inner rooms? Or like a frosty night, cold, with the bright moon hung like a dish of ice: its clear light seems something one could grasp, but look up and it is not easily caught. My nature is as if mad, as if awake, and in learning I have nothing fine or exact. My mouth stumbles and my speech is not at ease, and in expounding and chanting there are many wrong notes. Thrice I declined, and then, unable to refuse, I forced myself to grope after their flavor. What in past days I had never grasped, for your sake I truly dig out to the marrow. It is not I who have awakened you; it is you who have truly awakened my mind.