Matching Again the Rhymes of the One Palindrome Poem with Which Vice Minister Yi Replied on Hearing My Poem on Sending My Son Off to Hongju復次韻李侍郞聞予送男赴洪州詩。以廻文見和一首。
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 · 90 Chinese characters · reading time 1 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 9 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 nut-pine stands up its high integrity and holds out
The river water soaks all with its broad feeling
There is no partition like a field-bank within your heart
Which, broad and large, lies open to the west and the south
The poem written on white-cocoon paper is clear
And its sense so weighty that it is hard to bear up under
It is as though powder had been laid on a moistened face
And I turn it about and read it three or four times over
Thrown off, the rhymes take shape beautifully, like gold
And broadly, broadly your rare discourse runs
The red sea-serpent floats and bridges the sea
The mottled horned dragon lies and breathes steam over the pool
A piece worth a million coins
Gladdens my son and me together
You loosen my heaped-up cares with wondrous words
And how thickly you treat me, you yourself know well
A friend who profits one is just such as you
And you have taught humility to a foolish boy