[One Thousand Characters a Day] Ham Hyeong-su's 'Candle of the Heart'

Editor's NoteSince poet Ham Hyeong-su published ＜Fragments of the Mind＞ in Dong-A Ilbo in 1935, he released numerous poems. In 1936, he co-founded the literary magazine ＜Siinburak＞ with Seo Jeong-ju, Kim Dong-ri, Oh Jang-hwan, and others. In 1939, his poem ＜Mind＞ won the Dong-A Ilbo New Year's Literary Contest, revealing the passionate and ingenious spirit characteristic of the Saengmyeongpa (Life Wave) movement. His works were often criticized as speculative and decadent, distant from reality, with a predominance of poems imbued with youthful melancholy. His representative work, ＜The Scream of the Sunflower＞, which asks not to erect a tombstone but to plant yellow sunflowers before the grave, is frequently cited in literary history. He died prematurely at the age of thirty-one, having suffered from a mental illness shortly after liberation. The text contains 315 characters.

Every night, there is a small candle that lights up inside my heart.
In the darkness, flickering as if it might go out,
A faint light
That supports my lonely soul.
It brings me endless deep contemplation,
And teaches me the path of a distant traveler.
And quietly, somewhere in the sky,
It guides me to a sacred place.
Ah?my pitiful body that only awakens at night,
And the lonely candle that leads me through the darkness,
When the bright dawn finally arrives,
I must extinguish this candle
And close my two eyes,
So as not to see the dazzling morning sun?
Nor the bustling morning streets?
Ah, my black pupils trembling in fear of the dawn.

- Ham Hyeong-su, ＜The Candle of the Mind＞