Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 1
To the Venerable Ji (之上人), Returning to the Mountains — Written at His Request for a Poem送之上人還山乞詩
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 1 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.
江山淸勝招君去。天地寬閑放我嬉。想爾觀空方默坐。是予顚倒醉狂時。
The rivers and hills, clear and surpassing, call you away, while heaven and earth, broad and idle, leave me to my play. I think the hour when you sit silent, contemplating emptiness (空), is just the hour when I am dead drunk and raving mad.