The ancient mountains have been silent long
enough; they seem now to be ready to burst out
in fire and become gigantic incense-burners to
God. This apocalyptic change will bring in a
world of perfect peace among all created beings.
In the anarchy and violence that followed
the April 19 Uprising, Pak Tu-jin suffered
greater injustice and humiliation personally
than during the Japanese rule. The foreigners
had reasons for persecuting him and most Kore-
ans, but he was now expelled from his loved
teaching position for the most absurd reason. It
was pure violence. He protested, pleaded,
cursed, mocked, condemned in his verse, the
only weapon left to him.
In this darkest period of his life, Pak Tu-jin
wrote more poems than he had ever done before.
But many of them are ‘‘occasional’’ verse with
the usual shortcomings pertaining to such,
though they bear vivid witness to his personal
feelings.
‘‘The River of Loneliness’’ is fairly represen-
tative of the poems of this period. The following
are selected passages from it.
On the river flows the blood from the light. The
blazing flower of fire loneliness used to set afloat
is now night.The trade between beasts toward the end of
tomorrow is never ending. Peace and freedom
are lying on the chopping block, unable to
move, below the blue knife.
The cat’s eyes are burning which will bear wit-
ness to this night long afterwards. And the raven
keeps the record of blood which will be croaked
out of his throat.
As soon as the signal flag was lowered on the
plain, even the clouds and winds proved betrayers.On the shore of the river of loneliness, where the
dove fell while repeating the name of its mate, an
old, blind bronze horse neighs trembling toward
the faraway sunset.
Light, blood, river, and other natural sym-
bols are extensively used by Pak Tu-jin in his
poetry, but they are nowhere else given such
personal poignancy and urgency as in these
lines. The blood flows from the light; that is,
the light is the source of the blood. Blood is
inevitable in revolutionary struggles. However,
since it is shed in a righteous cause, it takes its
origin in the ‘‘light.’’ Mundane history demands
that the transparent, cold, weightless ‘‘light’’ be
the source or cause of the red, warm, sticky
‘‘blood.’’ Pak Tu-jin is acutely aware of the
paradox.
Unlike the utter loneliness and helplessness
of the poet, the practical world is busy with the
‘‘trade’’ that will surely lead to the catastrophic
end of all. The main articles of the ‘‘trade’’ are
peace and freedom, which are ‘‘lying on the
chopping block’’ like a fish helplessly waiting
for the sharp, blue knife to come down into it.
This striking metaphor refers to an old saying
about the helpless victim for the bigger, choicer
part of which the strong ones contend with one
another.
In such a situation the lonely poet’s mission
becomes that of the witness, watching with the
eyes of the cat and recording with the foreboding
voice of the raven. The lamb, the deer, etc. are set
aside and in their stead such sinister animals are
chosen as the poet’s self-image.
The signal flag that lately flapped high
above the plain has been forced down and in its
place, perhaps, the enemy flag may be fluttering,
supported by the same but betraying wind.
The old blind bronze horse in the last part is
very impressive image of the lonely poet. The
old, blind poet is of course the archetype of the
great poet. Homer is said to have been old and
blind when he ‘‘saw’’ not only the whole Medi-
terranean world but also the world of the gods.
Milton was really old and blind when he so
clearly gazed into ‘‘the fixed deeps of light.’’ In
Korea, certain blind persons are regarded as
having prophetic powers. But the archetypal,
old, blind poet is fated to be lonely, if only
because of his unlikeness to ordinary men in his
physical disability.
The blue-green rust of the bronze is a sym-
bol of long history in oriental literature. The
bronze horse may be considered to be a relique
of the bronze age when recorded or reported
history started. Thus the old blind bronze horse
becomes the compelling image of the archetypal
lonely poet as the persistent witness of man’s
history. However, the lonely poet sees now only
the sunset which will bring in the utter darkness.
He can no longer envision a supernal world as
Homer and Milton did.
‘‘The River of Loneliness’’ is Pak Tu-jin’s
personal testimony to the hard times he went
through, but it obtains a certain degree of uni-
versal appeal by embodying just indignation
against manifest injustice. However, many ofRiver of August