Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 13
Matching the Rhymes of the Gentlemen's Replies次韻諸公見和
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 13 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.
切雲仙署夜沈沈。寒露丁東滴翠林。枯腊方承雲雨潤。衰髥難避雪霜尋。人言老鶴乘軒去。我苦寒螿抱葉吟。薄命如吾猶得忝。賴無侍史護香衾。
In the immortals' office that seems to touch the clouds the night wears on, and cold dew falls drop by drop on the green grove. Dried meat only now receives the wetting of cloud and rain, and a failing beard can hardly escape the coming of snow and frost. People say an old crane has ridden up into a carriage, but I am as wretched as a cold cicada clinging to a leaf and crying. Even one of thin fortune like me has presumed to a seat; it is only my luck that no attendant clerk (侍史) keeps my scented quilt.