Thirty days of freezing cold in the twelfth month,
Dense snow falls again and again in profusion.
Who says moisture benefits withered roots?
Starving people in the market freeze to death.
Even in death, they are devoured by jackals and wolves;
Official carts return, city walls still incomplete.
For miles, no hearth smoke from homes,
Why do chickens and dogs complain so bitterly?
Heaven shows no pity for our people,
Why scatter jade-like blossoms all night long?
Pure as the noble man's integrity,
Yet drenching mostly the faces of the lowly.
Cold locks noble gates, visitors grow scarce;
Blinding snow blocks roads, merchants' travel halts.
Tiny, fine as dust between,
Light and slow, forming a soft rustle.
The court knows not the people's hunger and cold,
Drives oxcarts full to load the jade-like snow.
Where are these loads bound?
Hidden deep in palaces to ward off summer's heat.
Able only to guard the ninefold gates,
How believe the wheel ruts' blood
Is every drop a farmer's cry?
After war's devastation,
Who will carry the white bones strewn across the fields?
Distant garrisons long lack grain;
Who will transport red millet from the great granaries?
Rebel soldiers still defy orders;
Who will face the flat carts and deer-horn defenses?
Officers are trapped in campaigns;
Who will enjoy buying flowers and bearing wine?
The Son of Heaven sits aloof, seldom seeking counsel;
His aides and eyes are all treacherous.
Obsequious to superiors while wavering in duty,
They still drive the starving to move Creation against summer's peril.
I hear of Shun's sagehood tilling the southern fields,
And Tang's virtue swallowing locusts for the people.
Never heard of tormenting the masses with base deeds,
Cliques and factions high and low acting as pests.
Feasting on official salaries without shame—
For these people I sigh, and sigh again.