Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 12
In the Mountains山中
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 12 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.
趨世尙難休。到山何憚阻。半日僧䆫閑。足償南北步。日落巖雲屯。霧蒸山雨霽。靜裏不妨吟。詩成卽是偈。
Follow the world, and it is still hard to find rest; come to the mountains, and why mind being shut in? Half a day at the monk's window is idle time, and it repays in full my walking north and south. The sun goes down, and clouds gather on the rocks; the mist steams up, and then the mountain rain clears. There is no harm in reciting in the stillness, for when a poem is finished it is a gatha.