Kim Jeong-hui: The Complete Poems, Volume 9, Part 6 — The Jingling Rhyme: Fifteen Poems for One Night

Poems 93–112 from the Wandang Jeonjip, Volume 9

This is Part 6 of the complete English translation of Kim Jeong-hui’s poems from the Wandang Jeonjip; it covers Volume 9, entries 93 through 112.

The center of this installment is a single literary occasion that produced fifteen poems in one night. Poems 102 and 103 record a session with a companion named Geumheon (今軒 / “Present-Moment Pavilion”), during which Kim and Geumheon used the rhyme scheme of Zhong Xing (鍾惺, 1574–1624), the late Ming poet from Jingling (竟陵) who led the Jingling School — known for its emphasis on solitary, melancholic, and formally refined verse. Ten poems were produced first, in the register of the Jingling tradition, then five more when Geumheon kept pressing for further verse. That night a great storm broke.

The session’s scale — fifteen heptasyllabic regulated poems in a single sitting, documented with the precision of source annotations that name sub-dedications and record incidental facts — is without parallel in Volume 9. It documents not just the poems but the social conditions that produced them: the companion who repeatedly prevented departure, the son’s upcoming wedding mentioned in passing, the fifth poem dedicated specifically to the Goyang county magistrate just beginning his post.

The installment’s formal character shifts at this centerpiece. Poems 93–101 are pentasyllabic regulated verse; poems 102–112, with one exception, are heptasyllabic. The longer line suits the more expansive and argumentative mode of the latter half — the literary-critical play of the Jingling sequence, the travel poems on the Icheon road, the family temple visit, the second farewell to Cho Hui-ryong, this time going not into exile but to Beijing as minister.

That arc — poem 82 (Cho Hui-ryong punished), poem 99 (farewell to his mountain retreat), poem 111 (farewell as ministerial envoy to Beijing) — is the installment’s political thread. Against this, the fifteen poems and the storm are the literary one.

觀音寺。贈混虛。 (Gwaneum Temple: Given to Honheo)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Pentasyllabic regulated verse (五言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A poem given to the monk Honheo (混虛 / 혼허, on first appearance: a Buddhist monk whose name combines “chaos” / 混 and “void” / 虛, two foundational concepts in Daoist-Buddhist thought; he appears again in poems 137 and 150 of this volume) during a visit to Gwaneum Temple.

Original text:

携僧上界宿。一偈萬緣輕。松日敞神界。山風無熱情。窓中只嶽色。寺裏唯蟬聲。淸塞心傳句。應敎世眼驚。

Translation: Cinemawords

Taking the monk, staying overnight at the upper realm; one sutra verse — ten thousand bonds lightened. Pine and sun opening the spirit domain; mountain wind without the heat of passion. In the window, only mountain color; within the temple, only cicada sound. Clear, filling the heart — verses transmitted: they should teach the world’s eyes to be startled.

Reading notes:

The poem’s opening frames the temple visit as an ascent into a different order of reality — “upper realm” (上界) is both a higher altitude and a spiritually elevated register. “One sutra verse — ten thousand bonds lightened”: a single line of Buddhist teaching can release an enormous accumulation of karmic attachment. The ratio is the poem’s governing logic: maximum effect through minimum means.

The middle couplets enact what they describe. “Only mountain color” in the window and “only cicada sound” in the temple — both are reductive, isolating the essential. What the mountain temple strips away is the excess of ordinary perception: multiple colors, multiple sounds, multiple concerns. What remains is adequate.

“Clear, filling the heart — verses transmitted”: the final couplet’s logic is Chan. The verses are not composed through ordinary intellectual effort but transmitted (心傳) — passed through from a space of clarity and receptivity. That such verses “should teach the world’s eyes to be startled” is Kim’s assertion that what looks like simple temple poetry carries something genuinely disorienting for those accustomed to conventional verse.

初秋 (Early Autumn)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Pentasyllabic regulated verse (五言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: An early autumn lyric without specific occasion.

Original text:

平分四序內。偏感得秋情。窠石團苔繡。魁梧壯雨聲。小醺剛中卯。凉夢已過庚。郭北泉應大。無人借屐行。

Translation: Cinemawords

Among the four seasons equally apportioned — especially feeling the autumn feeling. Nest-stone with rounded moss embroidery; imposing and massive — the powerful sound of rain. Slightly drunk — just at the mao hour; cool dreams — already past the geng watch. North of the city wall, the spring should be swelling — no one to borrow clogs and walk there.

Reading notes:

The poem’s opening move is a paradox: among the four seasons equally divided, autumn nonetheless makes itself felt especially. The equal apportionment is objective; the particular receptivity is subjective. Kim is not claiming autumn is objectively more significant — he is acknowledging the seasonal bias of a certain temperament, the disposition that made him say in poem 25 (Seobyeok Pavilion in autumn) “when spring comes I grow tired of extravagance; I love this autumn’s crystalline clarity.”

“Nest-stone with rounded moss embroidery” (窠石團苔繡): the stone around which moss has grown into rounded, embroidered patterns — one of Kim’s characteristically precise natural observations. The stone becomes an object of craft without any human craftsman.

The time references (卯 hour / mao, 5–7 AM; 庚 watch / geng, late afternoon period) track the day from a slight morning intoxication through the cool afternoon dream. By evening, the spring north of the city wall would be swelling with autumn rain — but there is no companion available to borrow clogs and walk there. The poem ends in the absence of an appropriate excursion, the day’s possibility not taken.

山映樓 (Mountain-Reflecting Tower — Three Poems)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Pentasyllabic regulated verse (五言律詩), 8 lines each; three poems. The third poem carries a variant reading for its final four lines.

Occasion: A sequence of three poems at Sanmyeongnu (山映樓 / “Mountain-Reflecting Tower”), a pavilion in the mountains north of Seoul. The second poem references King Jinheung of Silla (眞興王, r. 534–576), suggesting this pavilion is in an area associated with Silla expansion — likely the Bukhansan range, where Jinheung’s famous stele inscriptions mark his northern campaigns. The third poem names specific peaks: Stone Granary (石廩 / Seoklim) and Cheondu (天都峰), identifying the location as Bukhansan.

Original text:

其一 一一紅林裏。廻溪復截巒。遙鍾沈雨寂。幽唄入雲寒。石老前生憶。山深盡日看。烟嵐無障住。線路向人寬。

又 二首

千峰紛匼匝。寒雨滿山樓。太古歸東日。眞興狩北秋。險要由地設。漫汗作天遊。繡谷知如此。林林膩欲流。

峯影隨橫側。在樓仍滿樓。支空團一氣。積健束高秋。石廩聯奇相。天都較壯遊。秪應施願力。坤軸鎭西流。[一本作石廩應聯秀。金莖卽並抽。山王施萬力。坤軸鎭東流。]

Translation: Cinemawords

I

One by one within the red forests; curving stream again cutting across the ridge. Distant bell sinking in rain’s silence; secluded Buddhist chanting entering cold clouds. Old stone — recollections of a former life; mountain deep — watching all day long. Mountain mist dwelling without obstruction; the thread-path turns broad for the traveler.

II

A thousand peaks in scattered confusion; cold rain filling the mountain tower. The ancient sun returning to the east; King Jinheung’s autumn hunt in the north. Strategic passes established by the terrain; vast and free — making heaven-travels. The embroidered valley — knowing it is like this: forest upon forest — slippery, wanting to flow.

III

Peak shadows following, horizontal and lateral; in the tower, still filling the tower. Holding up the void — gathered in one breath; accumulated strength binding the high autumn. Stone Granary connecting unusual appearances; Cheondu compared to a grand tour. Only proper to exercise vow-power — the earth’s axis steadying the westward current. [Variant reading: Stone Granary should connect to elegance; / golden stems immediately growing together; / Mountain King exercises ten thousand powers; / the earth’s axis steadying the eastward current.]

Reading notes:

Three poems at one pavilion constitute a sustained examination of the same landscape from different angles. The first poem is intimate and meditative: the red forests, the bells, the chanting, the old stone that triggers a former-life memory — Kim’s characteristic Buddhist-epigraphic mode, as if the ancient stone contains a record of previous existence. The second shifts to historical scale: King Jinheung’s sixth-century expansion northward into the Bukhansan area is invoked against the same landscape, making the “thousand peaks in scattered confusion” both a natural observation and a historical one.

The third poem is the most cosmological. “Holding up the void — gathered in one breath; accumulated strength binding the high autumn” attributes to the mountain a structural function: it holds the sky. The named peaks — Stone Granary (石廩) and Cheondu (天都峰) — are specific Bukhansan summits, and “only proper to exercise vow-power” invokes the Buddhist vow (願力) as the energy that sustains the mountain’s cosmological role. The variant reading changes the final couplet’s orientation from west (西) to east (東), altering the poem’s cosmological balance entirely.

八月廿二日。與沁雪共作三島之遊。途中口號。 (22nd Day of the Eighth Month: Three Islands Excursion with Simseol — Improvised on the Road)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Pentasyllabic regulated verse (五言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A poem improvised while traveling on a “Three Islands excursion” (三島之遊) with Simseol (沁雪 / “Clear-Snow,” a literary companion who appears also in poems 4, 84, and 106). “Three Islands” (三島) draws on the Daoist mythological name for the three immortal islands — Penglai, Fangzhang, and Yingzhou — applied here as a poetic designation for a mountain excursion that feels like entering an immortal realm.

Original text:

危途盤未已。行觸高雲凉。遠色元無着。秋空欲破荒。塵臼誰解脫。仙路此津梁。雲樹迷茫際。依然似董黃。

Translation: Cinemawords

The dangerous path winding without end; walking, touching the coolness of high clouds. Distant colors essentially without attachment; the autumn sky wanting to break open the desolation. From the dust-mortar — who escapes? The immortal path — this ford and bridge. Clouds and trees at the hazy boundary — still resembling Dong [Yuan] and Huang [Gongwang].

Reading notes:

The road improvised poem (途中口號) catches thoughts in motion — less composed than the temple poems of Parts 4 and 5, more immediate. The “dust-mortar” (塵臼) is a Buddhist image for the world’s grinding repetition, the cycle of ordinary concern that wears one down. The mountain road itself becomes the ford and bridge of the immortal path.

Dong Yuan (董源, 10th century) and Huang Gongwang (黃公望, 1269–1354) are the two foundational masters of ink-landscape painting in the Chinese tradition — Dong for misty, atmospheric southern landscapes, Huang for dry, accumulative mountain textures. “Still resembling Dong and Huang” places the visual experience of the mist-and-tree boundary directly inside the history of landscape painting, suggesting that the excursion’s landscape looks like the canonical representations of landscape rather than the other way around.

贈人 (Given to Someone)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Pentasyllabic regulated verse (五言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A poem given to an unidentified person. The source note embedded in the text — 君驚我白髮 (“You were startled by my white hair”) — indicates that the occasion involved a reunion after a long separation, the friend noticing Kim’s physical aging.

Original text:

倂作畵省直。東西天一涯。頹唐多是髮。[君驚我白髮] 經過勝於家。秋熱尙勞扇。午醒偏憶茶。鳳池傳盛事。帬屐最繁華。

Translation: Cinemawords

Together serving in the Bureau of Painting; east and west — heaven’s one horizon. Disheveled — much of it is hair. [You were startled by my white hair] Passing through — better than being at home. Autumn heat still requiring a fan; waking at noon — particularly remembering tea. Fengchi [the Hanlin Academy] transmitting great affairs; skirts and clogs — the most splendid.

Reading notes:

The source annotation embedded after line 3 — “you were startled by my white hair” — is a disclosure that reframes the whole poem. The “disheveled — much of it is hair” (頹唐多是髮) in the poem proper is a carefully understated version of what the annotation admits directly: the white hair is the meeting’s central fact, and the friend’s visible shock is the occasion.

“Passing through — better than being at home” (經過勝於家): to be in transit, always moving, is better than settled domesticity — a characteristic Kim position that connects to the roaming spirit of the excursion poems.

“Fengchi transmitting great affairs; skirts and clogs — the most splendid”: the Fengchi (鳳池 / Phoenix Pond) is the classical designation for the Hanlin Academy, the empire’s most prestigious literary post. The poem closes by describing official elegance — but with a slight ironic distance: “the most splendid” applied to formal dress suggests that this world of official brilliance is being observed from outside, not inhabited.

秋日重到瓜地草堂 (Autumn Day: Returning Again to Gwajji Thatched Cottage)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Pentasyllabic regulated verse (五言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A return visit to Gwajji Chodang (瓜地草堂 / “Gourd-Patch Thatched Cottage”), a hermitage or studio Kim visited five years previously.

Original text:

出門秋正好。携衲更堪憐。欵欵三峰色。依依五載前。靑苔仍屋老。赤葉漸林姸。飄泊西東久。山中鎖暮烟。

Translation: Cinemawords

Going out the door, autumn is just right; bringing a monk along — even more moving. Leisurely and sincere — the color of three peaks; lingering — five years ago. Green moss still aging the house; red leaves gradually making the forest beautiful. Long drifting west and east; the mountain locked in evening smoke.

Reading notes:

The return after five years works as a test of what has changed and what has not. The moss and the red leaves have continued their respective progressions — the moss aging the house, the leaves beautifying the forest — while the three peaks retain their color unchanged. The visit five years prior is present only as a disposition (欵欵 — leisurely and sincere) and a temporal measure; the poems written then, whatever they were, are not cited.

“Long drifting west and east” (飄泊西東久): five years of movement has left Kim unable to settle. The cottage remains; he has been the variable. “The mountain locked in evening smoke” is the poem’s closing image: the mountain at day’s end containing what it always contains, indifferent to the interval of absence.

別彝齋。轉往白蓮山屋。次壁上韻。二首 (Farewell to Yijae, Who Then Went to the White Lotus Mountain House; Rhyming the Verse Written on Its Wall — Two Poems)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Pentasyllabic regulated verse (五言律詩), 8 lines each; two poems.

Occasion: A second farewell to Cho Hui-ryong (조희룡 / 趙熙龍, pen name Yijae / 彝齋) — he is now retreating to his mountain residence at Baengnyeonsan (白蓮山 / “White Lotus Mountain”). Kim rhymes the verse already written on the wall of that house.

Original text:

其一 春風一爲別。此地重傷心。悵望行雲遠。低回落日深。仙人吟鶴柱。宰相識雞林。將看孤棲處。靑苔舊榻侵。

其二 送客尋幽至。聊寬遠別心。主人相欵欵。小洞此深深。巧貯靑山色。安排紫杏林。壁間虹月影。不遣一塵侵。

Translation: Cinemawords

I

Spring wind — once to part; at this place, deeply heartbroken. Melancholy watching traveling clouds far away; lingering low — sunset sinking deep. The immortal chanting at the crane pillar; the minister recognizing Gyerim [Korea]. About to see the solitary dwelling: green moss encroaching on the old sleeping mat.

II

Sending off the guest, reaching the secluded; somewhat easing the parting-from-afar heart. The host, mutually earnest and sincere; the small grotto — this deep, this deep. Cleverly storing green mountain color; arranging a purple apricot grove. Between the walls — rainbow and moon shadows; not allowing a single dust-mote to enter.

Reading notes:

The two poems move between two perspectives on the same farewell: the first is Kim watching Cho Hui-ryong’s departure from his own position (the melancholy observer, the sunset, the moss-covered mat at the mountain house), while the second shifts to the host at White Lotus Mountain receiving the newly arrived guest. Together they create the complete scene: the farewell and the arrival, the sadness of parting and the pleasure of reaching somewhere deep and clean.

“The minister recognizing Gyerim” (宰相識雞林): Gyerim (雞林 / 계림 — “Chicken Forest”) is an ancient name for the Silla kingdom and, by extension, Korea. A minister who recognizes Gyerim is someone with sufficient learning and perspective to know Korean literature and culture. The figure honors Cho Hui-ryong’s cultivation.

The second poem’s White Lotus Mountain house — “cleverly storing green mountain color; arranging a purple apricot grove; between the walls, rainbow and moon shadows; not allowing a single dust-mote to enter” — describes a space of exceptional clarity, as if the house has been specifically designed to hold light while excluding everything contaminating.

寄泊翁 三首 (Sent to Poktong — Three Poems)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Pentasyllabic regulated verse (五言律詩), 8 lines each; three poems.

Occasion: Three poems sent to Poktong (泊翁 / “Anchored Elder”), a literary companion who appeared also in poem 73 and will appear again in poem 117. The second poem contains an embedded source note explaining the running literary argument: when Poktong comes to discuss poetry, Kim often counters with playful objections. A second note indicates that brewing was prohibited at the time, and that Poktong had a poem about farewell wine.

Original text:

其一 甕人眞浪迹。百刦鬢華明。世諦參新義。詩名托此生。檢毛徵異物。弄吻脫奇情。瓴甓自地起。何須彈五城。

其二 翁詩來輒訟。此案最難明。[翁來說詩。余多戲語駮之] 老氣逾無敵。微官偶寄生。海天曾遠夢。山夜舊多情。如辦三升醞。[時禁釀。翁詩有餞酒之作] 何須羨百城。

其三 尙賴翁詩在。能通一線明。悟機元困得。聲聞太憨生。春麗鯨鏘處。花紅玉白情。江河流萬古。誰管五言城。

Translation: Cinemawords

I

The jar-person truly wanders; through a hundred eons, temple-hair brilliantly bright. Worldly truth — probing new meanings; poetry fame — entrusted to this life. Examining feathers, seeking unusual things; playing with lips, expressing unusual feeling. Roof tiles rise naturally from the ground — why need to pluck the Five-City zither?

II

The elder’s poems arriving — immediately contested; this case most difficult to clarify. [When the elder comes to discuss poetry, I counter with many playful words] The elder spirit increasingly peerless; minor official, occasionally parasitic. Sea and sky — once a distant dream; mountain nights — old abundance of feeling. Like managing a brew of three measures — [At that time brewing was prohibited; the elder had a farewell-wine poem] why need to envy a hundred cities?

III

Still depending on the elder’s poems being there; able to pass through one thread of brightness. Awakening to the mechanism — originally hard to obtain; the Śrāvaka [Hinayānist] — too naively born. In spring splendor where the whale-bells clash; red flowers and white jade feeling. Rivers and streams flowing ten thousand ages — who cares about the five-character verse fortress?

Reading notes:

Three poems of affectionate literary argument. Poktong sends his poems to Kim; Kim contests them playfully, which he admits in the source annotation. The “case most difficult to clarify” (此案最難明) treats the literary-critical dispute as a legal proceeding, a game both men enjoy.

The annotations carry as much weight as the poems: Poktong wrote a farewell-wine poem despite a current prohibition on brewing — the gesture of formal literary production under constraint is its own kind of accomplishment. “Like managing a brew of three measures” applies to Poktong’s poetic capacity: making much from little, producing quality despite restriction.

Poem III’s “the Śrāvaka too naively born” (聲聞太憨生): Śrāvakas are the disciples of the Hīnayāna who pursue personal liberation without the Bodhisattva’s commitment to universal liberation — here a gentle figure for anyone too literal, too narrowly focused, who misses the larger field that Poktong’s poetry opens. “Who cares about the five-character verse fortress?” dissolves the technical question (Is five-character verse the right form?) in the larger recognition that rivers flow regardless of whether anyone defends the genre.

石瓊樓次犀翁韻。 (Seongnyou Tower: Rhyming Siong’s Verse)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Pentasyllabic regulated verse (五言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A poem written at Seongnyou Tower (石瓊樓 / 석경루), rhyming the verse of Siong (犀翁 / 서옹 — “Rhinoceros Elder,” unidentified).

Original text:

谷裏靑絲騎。山中紫筍巾。看花皆昔樹。把酒亦陳人。久惜烟雲變。每懷光景新。流連今雨好。街陌多紅塵。

Translation: Cinemawords

In the valley — blue-silk riding; in the mountain — purple bamboo-shoot headcloth. Looking at flowers — all are trees from before; holding wine — also old acquaintances. Long regretting the smoke-cloud changes; always cherishing the fresh scenery. Lingering — today’s rain [new friends] is welcome; the streets and alleys — much red dust.

Reading notes:

“Today’s rain” (今雨) in the penultimate line carries Du Fu’s famous pun: in his “Letter Sent to Jiangnan,” Du Fu distinguishes 今雨 (today’s rain / present-day friends) from 舊雨 (old rain / old friends), observing that only old friends stayed through hardship. Kim uses it warmly here: the new friends assembled at Seongnyou Tower are welcome, today’s rain pleasant against the dusty streets.

The poem’s middle couplets acknowledge the passage of time: all the flowers belong to trees that were here before, all the wine drinkers are old acquaintances. The tower gathering is not a novelty but a continuation — and yet the scenery is always freshly perceived. This paradox — familiar people and places, perpetually new light — is the experienced reality of the gathering rather than a consolation for its familiarity.

與今軒共拈鍾竟陵韻 十首 (Ten Poems: With Geumheon, Using the Rhyme of Zhong Xing of Jingling)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Heptasyllabic regulated verse (七言律詩), 8 lines each; ten poems in sequence. All poems rhyme in the same category (庚韻 / geng rhyme group).

Occasion: A joint poetry session with Geumheon (今軒, on first appearance: a literary companion whose pen name means “Present-Moment Pavilion,” unidentified), using the rhyme scheme of Zhong Xing (鍾惺, 1574–1624, from Jingling / 竟陵, Hubei) — the leading figure of the Jingling School (竟陵派) of late Ming poetry, which emphasized solitary, melancholic, and inwardly refined verse as a corrective to the preceding Archaist emphasis on surface-level imitation of Tang poetry. The source note for the first poem records: “Geumheon has kept me from leaving many times.”

Original text:

其一 一代襟懷合爽靈。擬將稧事續蘭亭。因君不取今人薄。爲我多敎去路停。[今軒爲我留住者屢] 久聞松筠存道力。饒看山水鍊眞形。春風挈榼前期在。楊柳東風欲放靑。

其二 岳色河聲似効靈。愛君詩筆特亭亭。已輸好句皆先得。愈見奇思尙不停。夙好商量山水友。閒居贈答影神形。林泉長享無量福。那識紆朱與拖靑。

其三 到處詩心境合靈。不論山榭與溪亭。尋津寶筏同拈解。轉世飈車孰敎停。花影香塵收息息。黍珠圓鏡叩形形。烏雲萬里憑新義。知否嵩陽眼拭靑。

其四 九天銀瀑有仙靈。宜爾誅茅置小亭。過去片雲無處覓。淋漓元氣此間停。定携巖下芝三秀。已佩囊中岳五形。不遣名山容俗駕。春來芳草塞蹊靑。[此詩專屬曹溪]

其五 區區文字有精靈。舊買仙人白石亭。[謂余北墅。有古白石亭舊址] 廿四泉聲心印合。[王秋史一號廿四泉草堂。余又號秋史故云] 三千偈子墨輪停。搜雲覓翠俱成境。飮淥餐膏已度形。夢裏松風留息壤。蟠蛟丹篆剔苔靑。

其六 飛斝劈箋此已遲。憶從氷齒誦君詩。至交朋友如同氣。易別心情欲自痴。水月拈來應並照。文章論定各相知。異時禪榻花風處。一屐一筇隨所之。

其七 相逢未覺春暉遲。仍到忘言仍忘詩。輸子才慚淘礫後。愛余文似嗜痂痴。俗情黃蘗苦還苦。遐想白雲知不知。別業東西分華半。秪憐邱壑實過之。

其八 東門芳草路遲遲。看取眉間去後詩。未勒歸雲空悵望。欲膠斜日本情痴。痕餘雪爪終難覓。趣合苔岑許共知。尊淥盈盈春似海。君今時復一中之。

其九 林泉晩福詎云遲。且計方來幾首詩。五嶽他時終結願。[時有令嗣婚說] 百花隨處未刪痴。此中不足爲人道。天下何甞出戶知。耳食紛紛竟陵體。雲山韶頀 缺 聽之。

其十 忽憶閒中歲月遲。千鴟酒又百篇詩。松風院落追眞逸。茆屋溪山憶大痴。今日莫商明日在。萬人獨有一人知。政憐跌宕淋漓處。韓海蘇潮上下之。

Translation: Cinemawords

I

One generation’s chest and heart: merged in refreshing spirit; intending to continue the Lanting gathering tradition. Because you don’t dismiss present-day talent as inferior, for my sake you repeatedly taught the departing road to stop. [Geumheon has kept me from leaving many times] Long hearing that pine and bamboo preserve the power of the Way; having seen much of mountains and waters, refining one’s true form. Spring wind carrying the wine-vessel — the previous appointment remains; willows in the east wind wanting to release their green.

II

Mountain colors and river sounds as if demonstrating spirit; I love your poetic brush — particularly upright and graceful. Already conceding that good lines are all gotten first by you; all the more seeing that your unusual thoughts have not stopped. Long-cherished discussing things with mountain-and-water friends; in quiet residence, exchanging poems — shadow reflecting divine form. Forest and spring — long enjoying immeasurable blessings; how would one recognize the bound-crimson and trailing-blue [official robes]?

III

Everywhere the poetic heart merges with the spirit realm — regardless of mountain gazebo or stream pavilion. Seeking the ford — the precious raft together picked up and understood; the turning-world storm-chariot — who can teach it to stop? Flower shadows and fragrant dust gathered breath by breath; millet-pearls and round mirror — knocking form upon form. The Wuyun [rubbing collection] across ten thousand li — relying on new meaning; do you know: the Songyuan eye, wiped clear?

IV

The nine-heaven silver waterfall has immortal spirit; fitting for you to clear the thatch and place a small pavilion. Past fragment of cloud — nowhere to be found; dripping and flowing vital energy stopping here. Surely carrying the thrice-flowering mushrooms at the rock’s base; already wearing in the bag the five mountain forms. Not allowing the famous mountain to accommodate common carriages — spring arriving, fragrant grass blocking the path in green. [This poem is dedicated to the Jogye [Chan Buddhist] tradition]

V

Small-small written characters have essence and spirit; long-purchased: the Immortal’s White Stone Pavilion. [Meaning Kim’s northern villa, which has the old site of White Stone Pavilion] The Twenty-Four Springs’ sound — heart-seal merging; [Weng Fanggang used the art name Twenty-Four Springs Thatched Hall; Kim also uses the art name Chusa, hence this] three thousand sutra verses — the ink-wheel stopping. Searching clouds and seeking green — all becoming realm; drinking clear [wine] and eating the rich — already passed through form. In dreams, pine wind remaining in the resting soil; coiling dragons in red seal script — scraping away the green moss.

VI

Flying the wine-vessel and splitting notepaper — this is already late; recalling: since the teeth of ice [childhood], reciting your poetry. The closest friends — like the same breath; easy-parting heart — wanting to become foolish of itself. Water-moon picked up — it should illuminate together; literary discussions concluded — each knowing the other. At another time, on the Chan couch, among flowers and wind: one clog and one staff — following wherever one goes.

VII

Meeting — not feeling the spring light late; continuing to reach forgetting words, continuing to forget poems. Conceding your talent, ashamed after sifting through gravel; loving my writing like the addiction of eating scabs — foolish. Common feeling — phellodendron bitter remains bitter; far thoughts — white clouds — knowing or not knowing. Separate estates east and west dividing the splendor in half — only feeling for hills and valleys: they truly surpass them.

VIII

East gate fragrant grass — the path slow, slow; looking at the between-eyebrows poem after going. Not yet carved — returning cloud, empty longing; wanting to glue the slanting sun — the original foolish feeling. Trace left of snow-claw — in the end hard to find; taste merging with mossy hillocks — may we share knowing. The vessel full of clear wine — spring like the sea: you now, at times, achieving the mark in it.

IX

Forest and spring — late blessing, who says it is late? Just count: coming now, how many poems? The Five Peaks — at another time, finally fulfilling the vow. [At the time there was talk of his son’s marriage] A hundred flowers everywhere — the foolishness not yet deleted. What is within here — not enough to be spoken to others; has the world ever known it by going outside the door? Hearsay scattered — the Jingling school’s style: cloud mountains, Shao and Xu music — [one character missing] — hearing it.

X

Suddenly remembering: in leisure, years and months slow; a thousand wine-vessels and a hundred poems. Pine wind in the courtyard — pursuing genuine freedom; thatched house, stream and mountain — remembering the Great Fool [Huang Gongwang]. Today: don’t negotiate — tomorrow is there; among ten thousand people, only one person knows. Just right to feel for the reckless and lavish places — Han Yu’s sea and Su Dongpo’s tide: rising and falling in them.

Reading notes:

The ten-poem sequence is the largest sustained poetic exchange in Volume 9. The Jingling School frame is not merely a stylistic choice: invoking Zhong Xing positions Kim and Geumheon in a specific late Ming literary tradition that valued inwardness, formal refinement, and the cultivation of the solitary imagination over the Archaist imitation of Tang surfaces — a tradition compatible with Kim’s own arguments in poem 43 (the Tang-Song debate poem) and with the epigraphic program of favoring ancient, weathered originals over smooth copies.

The sequence builds through several distinct movements. Poems I–III establish the occasion and the mutual compliment, with Kim consistently crediting Geumheon as the more gifted. Poem IV, dedicated to the Jogye Buddhist tradition, turns toward spiritual landscape — the immortal waterfall, the rock-mushrooms, the mountain protected from common carriages. Poem V anchors the sequence in Kim’s specific studio geography: the White Stone Pavilion site, the Twenty-Four Springs name (shared with Weng Fanggang), and the three thousand sutra verses that populate the study.

Poems VI–VIII are the sequence’s most personal: childhood memories of reciting Geumheon’s poetry (in poem VI, 氷齒 / “teeth of ice” invokes a childhood cold season), the self-deprecating comparison (eating-scab addiction as a figure for acquired taste), the difficulty of catching the right moment before it passes.

Poem IX’s insertion of a family note — “at the time there was talk of his son’s marriage” — shows how the sequence contains not just literary exchange but the whole social texture of a gathering. Poem X’s closing couplet — “Han Yu’s sea and Su Dongpo’s tide: rising and falling in them” — places the entire session inside the long literary tradition, two friends at an evening table with the weight of the Korean-Chinese classical inheritance rising and falling through them.

今軒又嬲以詩。走成五疊。是夜大風雨。 (Geumheon Kept Pestering for More Poems; I Quickly Produced Five. That Night There Was a Great Storm.)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Heptasyllabic regulated verse (七言律詩), 8 lines each; five poems. The third poem has a seven-character gap in the source. The fifth poem carries a source note indicating it was dedicated specifically to the Goyang county magistrate.

Occasion: Continuing the same session as poem 102, after Geumheon kept pressing (嬲/뇨 — to pester, importune) Kim for further poems. Five more were quickly produced. The source reports that a great storm (大風雨) broke that night.

Original text:

其一 黃塵辛苦尺三身。夢裏惟無隔遠人。爲是盡情同賞雨。憐他着手卽成春。琅玕芝艸嗟何及。燈火詩書尙可親。哀樂中年頻感觸。便因小別輒傷神。

其二 暫現世間居士身。仍成鶴貌鷗心人。當時目以豊年玉。此夜渾然一座春。風雨經來惟整暇。雲山除却不情親。怪他詩思淸如水。秋月氷壺舊鍊神。

其三 邱壑尙遲置此身。不堪爲子意中人。闌風伏雨送長夏。紅穗碧花爲小春。缺七字。別裁僞體轉相親。鈍根愧殺從牙後。對我揮毫捷有神。

其四 前世德雲卽我身。君應懶瓚畵中人。絃淸磵水松風夜。句艶花紅玉白春。各夢一牀悵去住。眞交萬里無疎親。天衣難覓縫痕處。刻繡區區枉用神。

其五 參證宰官水月身。行將慈筏度千人。專城歡祝北堂日。有脚移來南地春。治是喬楸偏感舊。禮成飮食爲惇親。政須仁化從吾始。琴以怡情鶴養神。[此首專屬高陽使君。使君今始欲奉板輿故云]

Translation: Cinemawords

I

Yellow dust, bitter labor — a three-foot body; in dreams, only without distant persons separated. Because of this, with full feeling sharing the appreciation of rain; feeling for him — what he touches immediately becomes spring. Jade-bamboo and mushroom herbs — alas, how to match? Lamp-fire, poetry and books — still something to draw close to. In middle years, frequently moved by sorrow and joy; easily, because of a small parting, the spirit is wounded.

II

Temporarily manifesting as a lay Buddhist in the world; continuing to be a person with crane appearance and gull heart. At that time, seeing him as the jade of a prosperous year; this night, the whole gathering spring-like. Wind and rain having come — only orderly leisure remains; cloud mountains removed — not the proper intimacy. Amazed at his poetic thought clear as water; autumn moon and ice vessel — the old refined spirit.

III

Hills and valleys — still slow to place this body there; unable to be the person in your mind’s eye. Scattered wind and crouching rain sending off the long summer; red grain-heads and blue-green flowers — a small spring. [Seven characters missing in source] Separately tailoring false forms — all the more intimate; dull-rooted, utterly ashamed — following from behind the teeth. Facing me, swinging the brush — quick and spirit-filled.

IV

In a former life, [the monk] Dayun was my body; you should be the person in the painting — [the monk] Lan Zan. Strings clear — mountain-stream water, pine-wind night; verses brilliant — flowers red, jade white spring. Each dreaming on one bed, melancholy about going and staying; true friendship ten thousand li — neither distant nor close. The heavenly garment — hard to find the seam-trace; carved embroidery — trivially, wasting spirit.

V

Verifying: the official’s water-moon body; about to go with compassion-raft to ferry a thousand people. The whole city joyously celebrating the North Hall’s day; on foot, moving to bring south-land spring. Governing is the tall catalpa — especially feeling the old times; when ceremony is complete, eating and drinking for sincere intimacy. Governance requires benevolent transformation starting from myself; the qin for delighting feeling — crane for nurturing spirit. [This poem is dedicated to the Magistrate of Goyanggun. The magistrate is just now beginning to serve and wishes to carry his aged mother in a sedan chair, hence this.]

Reading notes:

Five poems produced under pressure, the storm breaking outside as Kim writes. Where the ten poems of poem 102 had the leisure of a planned session, these five have the quality of improvisation that releases rather than constructs — each one finds its angle quickly and commits.

Poem I registers the bodily cost: the “three-foot body” (尺三身 — a humble classical measure for the small mortal frame) ground by yellow dust and labor. But “what he touches immediately becomes spring” names what makes Geumheon worth the session’s duration: the transformative quality that Kim lacks and recognizes.

Poem IV invokes two eccentric Chan figures: Dayun (德雲), the spiritual guide of the Huayan Sutra who appears as a luminous teacher, is claimed as Kim’s former-life identity. Lan Zan (懶瓚 / 懶殘), the Tang monk famous for concealing deep insight behind apparent laziness and eccentricity, is Geumheon’s. “The heavenly garment hard to find the seam-trace” (天衣難覓縫痕處) inverts the classical praise of perfect artistry — 天衣無縫 (the heavenly garment has no seams) — suggesting that searching for the seam is its own activity, the critic’s endless labor that the artist has already moved past.

Poem V’s dedication to the Goyang county magistrate beginning his post — embedded mid-session, mid-storm — shows that even the most personal literary exchange can pivot to the practical and civic. The magistrate’s filial wish (板輿 / the board sedan chair used to carry aged parents, an act of classical filial piety) receives the poem’s final couplet about governance beginning from oneself.

驟雨旋止。憫坐拈韻。 (Sudden Rain, Then Stopping: Sitting in Sadness, Picking Up the Rhyme)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Heptasyllabic regulated verse (七言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A poem written after a sudden shower passes, the weather shifting so quickly that sitting indoors becomes a meditation on change. The post-storm moment connects loosely to the great storm of poem 103 the previous night.

Original text:

暘雨朝來在轉頭。黝然庭宇忽深幽。山光水色皆新得。萬壑千峰想急流。竟日不休猶未足。薄雲將散耐暫留。希文憂樂先存念。閒漫溪亭訪瀑遊。

Translation: Cinemawords

Sunny then rainy — in the morning changing in an instant; suddenly the courtyard becomes dark and deeply secluded. Mountain light and water color — all newly obtained; ten thousand ravines, a thousand peaks — imagining rapid currents. All day without rest — still not enough; thin clouds about to scatter — enduring, staying briefly. Fan Zhongyan’s worry-and-joy formulation — kept as the foremost thought: lazily wandering to visit the stream pavilion, going to see the waterfall.

Reading notes:

Fan Zhongyan (范仲淹 / 希文, 989–1052) is invoked through his famous Yueyang Tower essay, which ends: “worry before the world worries; enjoy only after the world has enjoyed.” Kim keeps this formulation (憂樂) as a governing principle while spending the post-rain afternoon doing precisely the opposite — wandering idly to pavilions and waterfalls. The tension is conscious and lightly ironic: the great statesman-essayist’s moral framework maintained alongside a personal preference for purposeless afternoon roaming.

“Mountain light and water color — all newly obtained”: after rain, the landscape appears genuinely fresh, as if newly made. This is not metaphor — the quality of post-rain light is distinctly different from pre-rain light, and Kim’s observation is empirically precise. The thin clouds enduring briefly before scattering mirror the poem’s own temporary duration: quickly written, soon past.

北園賞春 (North Garden: Appreciating Spring)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Heptasyllabic regulated verse (七言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A spring gathering in the north garden. “Grand Master composes a rhapsody” and “Inner Historian pours the cup” are likely playful official-title designations for members of the gathering; the “purification ceremony” (祓稧) on the Third of the Third Month echoes the Lanting occasion.

Original text:

此歲此園重覓春。啼禽欵欵不驚人。大夫作賦登高地。內史流觴祓稧辰。恰受峰光多一屋。平分花氣足三隣。冷冷賀若餘音在。明日山顚又水濱。

Translation: Cinemawords

This year, this garden — again seeking spring; crying birds — leisurely, not startling people. The Grand Master composes a rhapsody, ascending high ground; the Inner Historian pours the cup — purification-ceremony day. Just right to receive the peak’s light — one more room; equally distributing the flower fragrance — enough for three neighbors. Clear and cold — the lingering sound of He Ruobi remains; tomorrow — mountain top and again waterside.

Reading notes:

The “purification ceremony” (祓稧) of the Third of the Third Month — held at flowing water to cleanse the year’s misfortunes — is the same occasion as Wang Xizhi’s 353 CE Lanting Gathering. By invoking it here, Kim positions this north garden spring event as a contemporary enactment of that tradition: the Grand Master and Inner Historian standing in for Wang Xizhi’s assembled calligraphers and poets.

He Ruobi (賀若弼, 544–607) was a Sui dynasty military commander also known for musical cultivation. “The lingering sound of He Ruobi” refers to the clear, cold resonance of his musical legacy — applied to spring, it suggests a quality of seasonal brightness that persists even after the specific moment has passed.

“Tomorrow — mountain top and again waterside” is the poem’s characteristic closure: the social garden spring sets up the wild mountain tomorrow. The installment’s movement between cultivated spaces (gardens, pavilions) and wilderness (the Icheon road, the Three Islands) is already visible in this small transition.

與沁雪作三島之遊。途中口號。 (Three Islands Excursion with Simseol — Improvised on the Road)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Heptasyllabic regulated verse (七言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A second Three Islands excursion poem with Simseol, this one on horseback rather than on foot. The “road improvisation” (途中口號) format connects it to poem 96, the previous Three Islands poem.

Original text:

靑鞵布襪勝因稀。天際晴雲特放暉。一路初過秋水去。此心欲化遠雲飛。孤村帶崦連還斷。斜日貪程去似歸。馬上殘吟續殘夢。澹烟濃樹入依依.

Translation: Cinemawords

Green shoes and cloth socks — auspicious causes are rare; at heaven’s edge, clear clouds especially releasing radiance. On the whole road, first passing through autumn waters; this heart wanting to transform and fly as distant clouds. The isolated village with mountain-edge — connecting and then breaking; slanting sun greedy for the road — going as if returning. On horseback, remaining chant continuing the remaining dream; light smoke, dense trees — entering in the clinging way.

Reading notes:

Where poem 96’s Three Islands excursion was on foot, this one is on horseback — and the heptasyllabic form gives more room for the landscape’s layering. “Slanting sun greedy for the road — going as if returning” is the poem’s best line: the late-afternoon sun, angling across the road, seems to want more distance, yet its direction creates the illusion of the road returning rather than extending. Going and returning become indistinguishable at this hour.

“On horseback, remaining chant continuing the remaining dream” (馬上殘吟續殘夢): two residues — the verse left over from the last stopping-point, and the dream left over from last night — continue each other. The excursion does not begin fresh; it continues accumulations that are already partly used.

利川道中 (On the Icheon Road)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Heptasyllabic regulated verse (七言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A poem written while traveling through Icheon County (利川 / 이천), in Gyeonggi Province. Icheon has been famous since antiquity for its early-ripening rice. The source note confirms: “The rice here ripens early; this year alone was spared from poor harvest.”

Original text:

婆娑數樹帶官家。策馬山顚復水涯。自昔良田呈瑞穗。[此地稻早黃。今年獨免歉] 秪今廢塔雨天花。西風行色多潦艸。古縣民風未啓華。明月十年三島夢。此遊也足向人誇。

Translation: Cinemawords

A few swaying trees alongside the official residence; urging the horse — mountain top and again waterside. Since ancient times, fertile fields displaying auspicious grain — [the rice here ripens early; this year alone was spared from poor harvest] only now — an abandoned pagoda in rain-sky flowers. West wind, the appearance of travel — much waterlogged grass. The old county’s people’s customs — not yet enlightened. Bright moon — ten years of the Three Islands dream; this excursion too — enough to boast about to people.

Reading notes:

The Icheon road poem is grounded in the specifics of agricultural travel: the official residence with its swaying trees, the horse urged between mountain and water, the famous early-ripening rice confirmed by source note as having escaped this year’s famine conditions. Against this practical background, the “abandoned pagoda in rain-sky flowers” (廢塔雨天花) stands: the derelict Buddhist structure now receives only rain and flowers, its institutional presence reduced to a visual element in the landscape.

“The old county’s people’s customs — not yet enlightened” (古縣民風未啓華): a traveler’s observation that is both descriptive and gently critical. The customs of Icheon’s people haven’t kept up with what refinement could provide — but the phrase carries no contempt, only a traveler’s notation of the gap between literary and agricultural cultures.

“Ten years of the Three Islands dream” — looking back across a decade of excursions framed as the pursuit of the immortal islands — and concluding that this ordinary county road trip is “enough to boast about” closes the poem with unexpected warmth. The mundane excursion to Icheon is, retrospectively, part of the same Ten-Years dream as the mountain pavilions and the Jingling poetry session.

又拈 (Another Pick)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Heptasyllabic regulated verse (七言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A continuation poem on the same road, picking up the verse again after a pause.

Original text:

今日林泉便不慚。幾年埃壒久難堪。行行山水成圖記。處處雲烟補筆談。店近眞同梅止渴。途長轉覺蔗回甘。神仙去覓丹邱子。爭似坡公雪竇參。

Translation: Cinemawords

Today, forest and spring — simply not ashamed; how many years of dust and grime — long unbearable. Walking, walking — mountains and waters becoming picture-records; everywhere — clouds and mist supplementing brush-conversations. Inn nearby — truly like plum-thought stopping thirst; road long — turning to feel the sugarcane-returning sweetness. Immortals going to seek Master Danqiu [the legendary hermit] — how to compete with Su Dongpo investigating Xuedou?

Reading notes:

“Plum-thought stopping thirst” (梅止渴): Cao Cao’s famous stratagem — telling his thirsty army that there is a plum grove ahead, causing their mouths to water — applied here to the sight of an inn nearby. The inn itself is not the plum, but its proximity produces the same relief. “Sugarcane-returning sweetness” (蔗回甘): cane is initially dry and fibrous; the sweetness comes back after sustained chewing. Applied to a long road, it describes the retrospective recognition of pleasure that wasn’t apparent in the immediate experience.

Su Dongpo’s visit to Xuedou (雪竇 / a Buddhist mountain site in Zhejiang) is a specific biographical episode associated with his most sustained mountain meditation. Kim invokes it here not to claim equivalence but to place the Icheon road within the tradition of productive travel: every worthwhile journey belongs to the lineage of the great poet-traveler’s investigation of landscape.

贈草衣 (Given to Cho-ui)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Heptasyllabic regulated verse (七言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A third poem for Cho-ui (草衣 / 초의, the Buddhist monk, tea master, and close friend, 1786–1866) in this volume. The preceding poems for Cho-ui were numbers 39 (pentasyllabic ancient-style verse) and 65 (heptasyllabic ancient-style verse about the stolen fish).

Original text:

任爾傍參笑百塲。了無礙處卽吾鄕。依人山鳥空喧寂。款客溪雲自煖凉。最是一床無別夢。詎能同味有他腸。襍花鋪上休藤葛。恐把摩訶說短長。

Translation: Cinemawords

Letting you stand alongside, laughing at a hundred situations; where there is utterly no obstruction — that is my homeland. Mountain birds dependent on people — vainly noisy then quiet; stream clouds hosting guests — naturally warm then cool. Most of all: one bed, dreams without distinction; how could there be another’s bowels sharing the same taste? On the mixed-flower spread, rest — no tangled vines; afraid of judging the Mahaprajna by its short and long.

Reading notes:

The poem’s opening line establishes the quality of Cho-ui’s presence: “letting you stand alongside, laughing at a hundred situations.” The hundred situations are the entire range of human comedy and difficulty; what Cho-ui contributes is the capacity to stand beside them without being pulled in. This is his function as a monk-friend — not to solve situations but to inhabit them with sufficient lightness that they can be laughed at.

“Where there is utterly no obstruction — that is my homeland” (了無礙處卽吾鄕): the unobstructed space of Buddhist practice — the absence of grasping, aversion, and delusion — is Kim’s declared native place. In Cho-ui’s presence, that space becomes available.

“Afraid of judging the Mahaprajna by its short and long” (恐把摩訶說短長): the Mahaprajna (摩訶般若) is the great wisdom teaching that exceeds all measurement. “Short and long” (短長) are the measures of ordinary critical judgment. Kim is saying: in Cho-ui’s company, the risk is not misunderstanding but mis-measuring — applying the scholar’s critical apparatus to what cannot be assessed that way.

陪家君上三藐寺。仲弟及金季良，咸聖中偕之。時雪庵，懶雲二釋。亦不期而至。皆近日名宿也。 (Accompanying My Father to Sammyaksa Temple; My Younger Brother, Kim Gyeryang, and Ham Seongjeung Joined; at That Time the Monks Seolam and Nanun Also Arrived Unexpectedly — All Prominent Monastics of Recent Times)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Heptasyllabic regulated verse (七言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A family and monastic occasion: Kim accompanies his father (가군 / 家君, Kim No-gyeong, 금노경 / 金魯敬, 1766–1840), his younger brother Kim Myeong-hui (김명희 / 金命喜, on first appearance: Kim Jeong-hui’s younger brother, who appears occasionally in family reference poems across the volume), and companions Kim Gyeryang (金季良) and Ham Seongjeung (咸聖中) to Sammyaksa Temple (三藐寺). The monks Seolam (雪庵) and Nanun (懶雲), described as prominent monastics of recent times, also arrive unexpectedly.

Original text:

招提一宿喜歡緣。雙袖天風慾界仙。靑白蓮交呈氣象。百千海攝現澄圓。往來方便飛雲屐。撥轉機鋒瀹月泉。紅日樓前如鼓大。無量壽相是中邊。

Translation: Cinemawords

At the temple, one overnight stay — joyful auspicious karma; two sleeves, sky wind — desire-realm immortals. Blue and white lotus intertwining — presenting the atmosphere; a hundred thousand seas gathered — manifesting clear and round. Coming and going in skillful means — flying-cloud clogs; turning and overturning the Chan-mechanism — steeping in moon-spring. The red sun before the tower — large as a drum; the Amitabha image — this is the center and the edge.

Reading notes:

The poem is the installment’s most concentrated piece of Buddhist-philosophical verse, and the only poem featuring both Kim’s father and brother. The arrival of the two monks (雪庵 and 懶雲) “unexpectedly” — 亦不期而至 — is what transforms an ordinary family excursion into something more: the gathering now includes lay practitioners (Kim’s family and friends) and fully ordained monastics.

“Blue and white lotus intertwining — presenting the atmosphere” (靑白蓮交呈氣象): blue and white lotus are associated with different Buddhas in the Esoteric tradition — blue with Akshobhya, white with Vairocana. Their intertwining is the atmosphere of a complete Buddhist gathering.

“Coming and going in skillful means — flying-cloud clogs; turning and overturning the Chan-mechanism — steeping in moon-spring”: skillful means (方便 / upāya) is the Buddhist principle that different teachings are appropriate for different minds and contexts. The flying-cloud clogs and moon-spring are specific images for the teacher’s movement through the landscape of teaching — the whole setting (the temple, the mountain, the overnight stay) becomes a pedagogical context.

The final line’s “center and edge” (中邊): from the Madhyāntavibhāga (中邊分別論), a key Yogācāra text establishing the non-duality of center and margin. The Amitabha image — familiar, devotional — is identified as this philosophical non-duality’s embodiment.

送彝齋尙書赴燕 (Farewell to Yijae the Minister, Departing for Beijing)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Heptasyllabic regulated verse (七言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A third farewell to Cho Hui-ryong — now traveling to Beijing (Yan / 燕) as a senior official with the rank of 尙書 (Minister of State). The contrast with poem 82 (farewell to punishment) and poem 99 (farewell to a mountain retreat) is stark: Cho Hui-ryong’s arc within this volume moves from exile-bound to minister-bound.

Original text:

皇華二月擁仙曹。暫攝西樞碧落高。縱使百廻猶不厭。如今重到詎云勞。誰於積水觀澄鏡。正及豊臺試紫袍。朱老阮生應問我。頹唐半世雪盈毛。

Translation: Cinemawords

Imperial glory in the second month surrounding the celestial officials; temporarily managing the western pivot — the blue heavens high. Even if a hundred times around — still not tiring; as now, returning again — how can one call it toil? Who at Jishui Lake will watch the clear mirror? Just arriving at Fengtai — trying the purple robe. Elder Zhu and Student Ruan should ask about me: disheveled through half a life — snow filling the hair.

Reading notes:

The poem’s emotional fulcrum is the final couplet. Cho Hui-ryong goes to Beijing in official glory — “the blue heavens high,” “the purple robe tried at Fengtai” — while Kim, who cannot join, asks to be remembered to the Beijing scholars. “Elder Zhu and Student Ruan should ask about me” positions Kim as the person who should be asked after, the figure who has a presence in the Beijing network despite his absence. “Disheveled through half a life — snow filling the hair” is the self-portrait that accompanies this message: not the glamour of the official departure but the scholar’s accumulated time.

Jishui Lake (積水潭) in Beijing’s inner city was famous for its clarity. “Who at Jishui Lake will watch the clear mirror?” is a dual question: who will observe the landscape with the quality of attention it deserves, and who will see their own reflection clearly? It asks Cho Hui-ryong to be that observer on Kim’s behalf.

The three farewell poems to Cho Hui-ryong — punishment (82), mountain retreat (99), ministerial mission (111) — constitute a miniature biography of political fortune within the volume.

同人泛舟伏波亭下 (Friends Boating Below Bokpa Pavilion)

Period: Exact date unestablished; pre-exile period (before 1840).

Form: Heptasyllabic regulated verse (七言律詩), 8 lines.

Occasion: A boat excursion with literary companions below Bokpa Pavilion (伏波亭 / 복파정 — “Subduing Waves Pavilion”), a riverside pavilion. “Silkworm-Head” (蠶頭 / 잠두) is a geographical landmark on the river.

Original text:

船旗獵獵下蠶頭。天水平連月似秋。黃鼎畵圖眞曠蕩。錢郞詩句謾淸愁。三江雲物杯前合。五夜潮聲枕外浮。更約明朝張網去。楊花渡口截中流。

Translation: Cinemawords

Boat flags flapping as they descend past Silkworm-Head; sky and water level and connecting — moon like autumn. Hwangjeong’s painting — truly vast and unrestrained; the Qian gentleman’s poetry — ramblingly clear sadness. Three rivers’ clouds and things — merging before the cup; five-night tidal sounds — floating outside the pillow. Further agreeing: tomorrow morning, spreading the net to go — willow catkins at the ferry-crossing, cutting the middle current.

Reading notes:

The boat poem closes the installment. After the mountain excursions, the literary session and its storm, the family temple visit, and the minister’s departure to Beijing, the gathering floats quietly on the river in the evening. “Sky and water level and connecting — moon like autumn” is the condition that makes the boat feel suspended between two mirrors, the moon equidistant between water and sky.

“Hwangjeong’s painting — truly vast and unrestrained” and “the Qian gentleman’s poetry — ramblingly clear sadness”: painting and poetry are brought onto the boat as aesthetic reference points. The Qian gentleman (錢郞) may be the mid-Tang poet Qian Qi (錢起, c. 720–c. 780), known for his clear and melancholy verse — his sadness (淸愁) serves as the mood’s proper name.

“Willow catkins at the ferry-crossing, cutting the middle current” is the poem’s and the installment’s final image: white catkins blown into the water at the ferry, dividing the current. The image is precise, seasonal, and does not announce its significance. It is simply there — a specific moment of observed natural fact at the end of a long social circuit.

Fifteen poems produced in one night — with a storm breaking outside — is the installment’s most extreme event, and it reveals something about what the pre-exile Volume 9 world looks like from inside: literary exchange as an occasion that can always produce more, where the demand for verse becomes its own kind of urgency, where the Jingling School’s aesthetic of solitary refinement can coexist with the gregarious social conditions of its production. Part 7 moves into the volume’s final stretch, where the poems become shorter on average, more occasional, and quietly preparatory for what Volume 10 will bring.