East neighbor's son is fifteen years old
Toiling alone in fields, his story told
At night he channels water round rice fields
At dawn he drives the ox to break tough yields
West neighbor's son is just a tender youth
With crane-like grace and scholarly in truth
He reads day and night, history and book
Awaiting official robes, with eager look
Each household scoffs at the other's way
West laughs at East, East mocks in disarray
West speaks of nurturing will and fame
Mutual scorn for goals not the same
East says though labor hard and long
Farming dawn to dusk for kin is strong
Men pound grain, women cook twenty years
Elders in hall show no aging fears
Weaving morn and night clothes the frame
Surplus shared with brothers, all the same
All seasons at home, never to part
Wife and servants keep to ritual's art
You start study at twenty, late and slow
Pass exams at thirty, as seasons flow
Long roads and partings, journeys vast
Few ever ride official carts at last
Even if you gain rank, age will press
To whom tell lifelong grief and distress?
Bones return to earth in a hundred years
Hometown mulberries drown in autumn tears
I farm now to serve heaven's decree
Weeding, reaping like youth, wild and free
Today's joy lights up my smiling face
Shouldered firewood feeds the hearth's embrace
Even when my hair turns winter snow
Grandsons will sow and reap, life's cycle grow
At home we keep an ancient Classic of Filial Piety
Handed down through ages, giving clarity
Tell the west house, do they understand?
Why mock the east house son, who tills the land?
In life you never taste sweet, rich delight
Posthumous fame is but an empty light