[One Thousand Characters a Day] Kim Youngrang's 'May Morning'

Editor's NoteAsia Economy provides daily 1,000-character transcription content for the 'Harumanbo Harucheonja' newsletter readers. The transcription content is carefully selected according to themes on a daily and monthly basis from Eastern and Western classics, Korean literature, famous columns, and notable speeches. Starting today, we will sequentially introduce 10 modern poems that have long been loved by Koreans. These are familiar works that you may have read at least once and that have appeared in textbooks. It would be good to write each character on paper and recite them aloud. If you upload your transcribed content to the 'Harumanbo Harucheonja' board (goodbrainboard.asiae.co.kr), you can enter a draw to win a 1-month free subscription to 'Millie's Library.' The first work is ＜May Morning＞ by Kim Young-rang, a representative pure lyric poet of Korea. The original orthography and the poet's diction at the time of writing have been preserved. Character count 392 characters.

May morning after the rain, the oriole's lonely song
- Brilliant sunlight spreads and rises

Drizzle wets the dawn,
The cuckoo's heart-wrenching cry, a blood-tinged sob,
A bowl of old incense scent, how can this heart not be stirred at this time,
In this morning light, the young inner leaves reaching to the sky are so soft,
At that nest, the titmouse's ankle making a chirping sound is tender,
After folding, the crumpled thoughts now seem to be all gently soothed

The oriole shakes the blue sky again,
Lavishly making the proud new sky

Only after discarding the smell of morphine does being forty become a pride,
The soul not called by the oriole in the morning is a heart the dawn cuckoo cannot catch,
Even if the midday is serene, what else is there to do

That oriole seems to be a diligent boy,
The dawn cuckoo is a long middle-aged man,
I am a person proud of being forty

- Kim Young-rang, ＜May Morning＞