Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 16
Lodging at Geumjongsa (金鍾寺) and Composing This the Next Day宿金鍾寺明日作
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 16 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.
遙尋一聲磬。暮入招提靜。拈香禮眞人。金像何煥炳。微風搖佛燈。欲滅還炯炯。僧房無衾禂。坐度寒夜永。撥火餘殘紅。主人猶在定。天明步巖陬。轆轤響石井。更坐當少須。雪亂風復猛。
Seeking from afar a single sound of the chime-stone, at dusk I enter the quiet monastery. I take up incense and bow to the True Man; how brightly the golden image shines! A faint wind shakes the Buddha's lamp, which seems about to die, then glimmers again. In the monk's room there is no quilt, and sitting I pass through the long cold night. I stir the fire and a remnant of red is there; the host is still settled in meditation. When day breaks I walk by the corner of the rocks, where the pulley sounds at the stone well. I must sit down again and stay a little while: the snow is wild, and the wind is fierce besides.