Song of the War Chariots (Du Fu: Song of the War Chariots)

War chariots rumble, war horses neigh; the soldiers march forth, bows and arrows slung at their waists. Fathers, mothers, wives, and children run to see them off, the dust they raise obscuring the Xianyang Bridge. They clutch at the soldiers' clothes, stamp their feet, and block the road weeping, their cries rising straight up to the clouds. A passerby asks a soldier what is happening; the soldier only says that conscription is too frequent. Some were dispatched at fifteen to guard the Yellow River in the north, and at forty are still sent west to farm garrison fields. When they left, the village elder wrapped their heads in cloth; now, with hair turned white, they must still guard the frontier. Bloodshed on the frontier is as vast as the sea, yet the Martial Emperor's (a veiled reference to Emperor Xuanzong of Tang) ambition to expand the realm has not ceased. Have you not heard? East of Mount Hua, over two hundred prefectures, thousands of villages are overgrown with brambles and wolfberries. Even where sturdy women wield hoes and plows to till the fields, the crops grow in wild disorder, rows and furrows indistinguishable. Moreover, the soldiers from within the passes are long-suffering and hardy by nature, yet they are driven like chickens and dogs. Old sir, though you ask about this, how dare we who serve complain? Take this winter, for example: the troops from west of the passes have yet to be relieved. The officials press urgently for taxes and rents—but where can taxes come from? Now I truly understand: giving birth to a son is no good at all; it would be better to have a daughter. A daughter can still be married to a nearby neighbor, but a son is left to lie buried among the wild grasses. Have you not seen? By the shores of Lake Kokonor, from ancient times, the white bones of the fallen have never been gathered. The newly dead ghosts pour out their grievances, while the old ghosts wail on unceasingly; whenever the sky darkens and rain falls, the air is filled with mournful, chirping cries.