Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 10
On the Nineteenth Day of the Fourth Month, Hearing the Sound of Night Rain四月十九日。聞夜雨。
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 10 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.
甘澍霑膏喜可量。已於簷末滴琤琤。披衣起坐須勤聽。旱久今方有此聲。
A sweet rain soaks richly — how can the joy of it be measured? Already from the edge of the eaves it falls in drops, clink upon clink. I throw on my clothes, sit up, and must listen diligently. The drought has been long, and only now is there this sound.