Coming to Seohwasa in Suan County, I Gaze at River and Hills and, at the Abbot's Request, Leave a Poem予以事到守安縣西華寺。小酌上方南榮。江山遠眺。莫有過兹者。然以境幽路僻。來遊者盖寡。故無有留題。住老請詩。爲留一篇。
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 · 99 Chinese characters · reading time 1 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 15 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.
The village is ringed with so many folded ridges
that there is nowhere to look out on the long reach of water.
Happily there is a temple of three rafters here,
and it is as though one had climbed a tower a hundred fathoms high.
The islands are faint, no bigger than a handful;
the boats are far, like cups afloat.
The eye runs out to the end and opens a thousand li;
the heart leaps over and straddles ten islands.
The spirits grudged us this place and kept it hidden,
but Heaven has granted us our roaming here.
The miasma is heavy because the mist steams up;
the grove is secluded because it holds a hollow of water.
The evening clouds drive the rain and darken;
the autumn fruit has taken the frost and softened.
Having gained a scene out of a gourd-bottle world,
I forget altogether the bonds of the world of men.
Only, because no visitor comes here,
one sees no poems left behind.
On what day shall I throw off the seal-cord at my waist
and come here at leisure to keep company with the gulls?