Plowing and weeding, sinews strain with pain,
Reaping and harvesting, fields bring joy again.
Neighbors agree to come and go in turn,
With wine cups, we toast each other in return.
Life provides for ups and downs,
Public levies forget thick and thin concerns.
Why, at this year's end,
Do old and young wear faces grim?
State needs have urgency at times,
Current debates discard measure and rhymes.
Inside and out, they rush for power and might,
High and low, they exhaust by cutting tight.
This year, nine summers dry,
The red sun burns for miles on high.
Ponds and lakes shrink to dust and dirt,
Grains and millets die on barren earth.
All expect relief must be seen,
Reason says it cannot be ignored, I ween.
They say granaries should be emptied for aid,
How can merely halting rent collection persuade?
Our people are already in dire need,
This hope is also distant indeed.
Yet, despite groaning pleas we make,
We end up whipped and beaten for sake.
Rather than discuss saving the gaunt and worn,
They instead fight over a peck of corn.
Ask why they should be driven so,
Long have they suffered want and woe.
Plans require selling the strong and stout,
Circumstances won't keep the frail and weak about.
Last year was already thus,
Sorrowful cries spread through suburbs and towns, a fuss.
Starving and weak, they beg for an inch of grace,
Soon to die under lash and binding's embrace.
Laws and statutes still seem clear and bright,
This logic is shocking to sight.
Ministers feast on heaven's pay,
Eyes and ears know the people's dismay.
How can they bear, within the wounds and scars,
To indulge in extortion's cruel bars?
But worry meets emptiness alone,
Could none take up plow and hoe, their own?
Tyrant clerks should rightly be removed,
Wasteful expenses, in principle, improved.
I lie avoiding clamor and noise,
These words I ponder, weighing poise.
Try to rise and gaze on villages left behind,
Dusty winds shake the ruins, unkind.