Setting out at dawn, I'm already behind the early walkers, / They gather and yield to the woodcutter's path in throngs.
The woodcutter toils, cutting wood to return home, / At dusk he finishes up and starts cooking again.
He goes out at midnight under dim stars and moon, / On rugged, dew-soaked grass, his clothes damp and cold.
In the market he gains a peck or so of grain, / Returns to share it with his wife and children to taste.
As before, he trudges up the mountain, / Never ceasing, morning and evening, in his busy rush.
Woodcutter, woodcutter, do not fret or grieve, / The world's road is hard, but diligence is good.
Locusts swarm everywhere, rice prices soar high, / I pity your hunger and toil, yet I am not full.
I suffer idle sorrows, my hair snow-white, / Cooking mallows and boiling goosefoot year after year.
On my slanted pillow at night, half asleep, half awake, / Sometimes I rise and sigh greatly, gazing at the starry sky.
Meeting people, I speak only of worries for the state, / Long lamenting those with no one to tell, in direst poverty.
The world's wicked evils are tangled like hemp, / Tigers and wolves seize and exhaust the deer and elk.
In sorrow I sleep, enduring hunger, not daring to go out, / Emaciated, my marrow and fat fit to be beaten and poked.
The grievance's vapor reaches heaven, heaven sends down disaster, / Year after year, the grain crops wither together.
These people often wish they could die swiftly, / Woodcutter, though you suffer, you have not reached this.
How can we find men who are humane, just, and strong, / To sweep away the scorpion stings and heal the people's wounds?
Moved, harmonious energy will timely fill the peck measure, / The woodcutter will eat his fill, and I will be drunk on wine.
Waiting to sing aloud with the woodcutter, / Once we spoke of the Kingly Way—what is it like now?