Don’t bring out the straw mat;
I’ll sit on fallen leaves.
Don’t bother to light the pine-knot torch;
The moon will rise again tonight.

But I might say yes to wine
And a little dish of mountain herbs.

Han Kwak's original poem is in the public domain.
This translation by Virginia Olsen Baron and Chang Seuk Park.

From World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time (W.W. Norton, 2007).
Used with permission.