Dokdo Island, A Guard of the East Sea

By Lee Su-Jeong

Tr. by Won Eung-Soon

The great sea of the East, being proud and deep blue colored,

As the last guard of the East Sea of our land

Stands lonely, but strongly there,

Has kept our Korean Peninsula for half a myriad.

Even in the long, long years,

The little island, has always sung our love,

And has smiled and cried together,

Taking root in our regrettable life.

O! it is a treasure,

And a pride of the East Sea

For us to protect even though the Japanese,

Absurdly at odds moments,

Make an unreasonable demand on our island.

It is a guardian angel of the ocean

Taking care of our land at the foremost line

As our blood vessel, and our love,

Our ancestor's souls here revive as many a bird

And the roaring waves wake us.

This island has stood proudly as being primitive figure

At the place not far away by the waterway

Toward the southeastern Ulnungdo island,

With the sea gulls singing with hearty joy of the heaven.

The fishes into that blue seawater

Who are always breathing alive in our history,

Together with the tired wind and waves

Take their rest at the refuge of the East Sea, Dokdo Island!

The Guard of the East Sea, Dokdo!

Who has shared our fate, our life and death,

Looking at our land at every time

Fallen into the last painful history,

Be forever in the new history of hundred million years!

ㅡ(Translator: Poet, Emeritus Prof. of Kyung Hee Univ. Ph.D.)