When I have money, I buy wine. No need for second thoughts.
When I have wine, I want flowers. Why hesitate?
I look at the flowers, drink the wine, let my white hair stream free;
I climb East Mountain, enjoy the moon and the breeze.
translated by Kevin O’Rourke
14th Century Korean Poetry
A Touch of Grace by Yi Je-hyon
As I was washing silk by a willow-drawn stream,
A man riding a white horse held my hand, and took my heart.
Though rain drips from the eaves for three months,
How can his fragrance lingering on my fingers be washed away?
translated by Sung-Il Lee
On a Swift Boat by Kim Ku-yong
From the swift boat with a full-blown sail
Mountains pass quickly, shoreline gliding by.
In a foreign land, one asks about customs;
But beautiful scenery compels me to compose lines.
On a stretch of land where ancient kingdoms prospered,
The month of May flows on the crystal stream.
Do not regret that you have neither wealth nor fame;
Don’t wind and moon follow wherever you go?
translated by Sung-Il Lee
Stepping off the Rain by Yi Gok
A mansion guarded by an elm stands by the road;
Its tall gate was built for prosperous posterity.
Now its dwellers have moved away, no cart comes by—
Only the passerby step in to avoid the rain.
translated by Sung-Il Lee
On a Spring Day by Wang Paek
After last night’s fog soaked my thatched roof,
Peach blossoms near the bamboo are suddenly in full bloom.
Drunk with wine, I forget the snowy streaks of my hair—
I wear a flowery crown, standing in the spring breeze.
translated by Sung-Il Lee
Shijo 2270 by U T’ak
In one hand I grabbed a bramble,
in the other a stick:
the bramble to block the advance of age, the stick to stay approaching white hair.
White hair, though,
outwitted me: it took a shortcut here.
translated by Kevin O’Rourke
Shijo 2060 by U T’ak
The breeze that melted the blue mountain snow
blew suddenly and was gone.
I’ll borrow that breeze a moment and blow it across my head,
to melt
the frost lodged so long in these locks.
translated by Kevin O’Rourke
Written on a Volume by a Friend by Yi Sack
The path runs aslant, deep among the jumbled mountains,
at sundown, cattle find their way home on their own.
This is indeed the wish of an old man come true:
sweet grass, faintly misted, reaches to the sky.
translated by Kim Jong-gil
Leonard Durso 