Korean Poems in Translation


Here are some of my favorites:


“Dirge For My Sister” by Buddhist Monk Wolmyung (c.742-765 A.D.)
(Translated by Peter Hyun)

Upon the thorny path of life and death
Fearful and wordless,
We part you and I.
We know not wherefore
The two falling leaves
From the same tree are scattered
By the first winds of autumn.
Abide by your way
Until we reunite in Nirvana.


“Will You Go” by an unknown kisaeng (c.1200s)
(Translated by Peter Lee)

And will you go away?
Will you thus forsake me,
Leave me, and go away?


How can you leave me so
That loved you every day,
How can you leave me so?

I could cling to you, stop you,
But fear you would never return,
Scared by my salt tears.

Go then, I’ll let you go.
But return soon, soon return,
As easily as you leave me now.


“Sijo” by Wu Tak (1266-1342)
(Hyun)

East winds that melt the mountain snow
Come and go, without words.
Blow over my head, young breeze,
Even for a moment, blow.
Would you could blow away
the gray hairs
That grow so fast around my ears!


by Kim Sang-Yong (1561-1637)
(Lee)

Fierce beats the rain
On the paulownia’s wide
Majestic leaves.
My grief awakens and twists my heart.
The loud rain beats on my sorrow.
Never again shall I plant
A tree with such broad leave.


by Yi Myong-Ban (1595-1645)
(Lee)

Do not draw back your sleeves and go,
My own,
With tears I beg you.
Over the long dike green with grass
Look, the sun goes down.
You will regret it, lighting the lamp
By the tavern window,
Sleepless, alone.


Anonymous
(Lee)

If my dreams
Left their footprints on the road
The path beneath my love’s window
Would be worn down
Though it is stone.
Alas, in the country of dream
No roads endure, no traces remain.


Anonymous
(Hyun)

What was love, in fact, what was it?
Was it round, was it square?
Was it long, was it short?
More than an inch, more than a yard?
It seems of no great length,
But somehow I don’t know where it ends.


by Yun Du-So (c.1700)
(Hyun)

The dust-covered jade
Is lying on the road
And passes-by
Mistake it for the dust.
Let them mistake it for the dust.
Someone will soon recover the jade.


“Incantation” by Kim So-Wol (1903-1934)
(Lee)

O name broken piecemeal
Strewn in the empty void.
Nameless name, deaf and dumb,
that suffers me to die as I call it.

The last word carved in my heart
was never spoken in the end.
O you that I love,
O you that I love.

Crimson sun hangs on the west peak,
the deer bell and call sadly.
There on the sheer steep peak
I call, call your empty name.

Until sorrow chokes me and unmans me
still I will call your name.
My voice goes aslant rejected,
lost between heaven and earth.

Were I to become a stone,
I would die calling your name.
O you that I love,
O you that I love.


“Yearning” by Kim So-Wol
(Ko Won)

The road is dusky under the sunset.
Over the dark mountains the clouds are lost.
My love will not come even late,
Yet, even so, my yearning is greater.
Whom should I go to meet and where?
The moon is rising, wild geese cry in the air.


Fallen Blossoms (1943) by Cho Chi-hun (1920- )
(Ko)

No blaming the breeze
if blossoms fall.
Sparse stars beyond the screen
One by one turn unseen.
As a cuckoo sings
far hills draw near.
Why blow out the candle
while petals fall?
Scattering shadows,
flickering over the garden,
dimly redden
the white paper-doors.
With a fear
someone may notice
the pure heart
of a hermit,
I cannot help weeping
in the flower-falling dawn.


“Rock” by Yu Chi-Hwan (1908-67)
(Ko)

When I die, I long to become a rock;
which is never infected with love or pity,
remains unmoved by joy and anger;
is beaten by the rain and the wind,
keeping the insentient silence forever,
whiping its own inside
until it even forgets about life;
a rock which does not sing, if it dreams,
under the flowing clouds
and the far-off thunders,
nor cries out even if broken to pieces.
I long to become such a rock.


“Age” by Sin Tong-Mun (1928- )
(Ko)

One day in the field I saw something like a broken piece of celadon china flash in the evening sun.
The other day I saw something like a woman’s hair thrown away beside a garbage can.
Yesterday I laughed at myself for imitating a loud weeping by chance on my way to somewhere.
This morning, looking at blood on the toothbrush, I was fancying myself an old bachelor.
I think tomorrow I will visit a dejected friend of mine whom I haven’t seen for a long time.


(more to come...)


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