Old Farmer
My paddy fields lie drowned in autumn rains:
Where its bank once was feet deep the river flows.
Now sunk to a starving hireling, how shall one pay
The rice tax which, this year, they'll still impose?
Since the new magistrate, a compassionate man,
Came to the district, changes have been made:
My yellow paper taxes were remitted
Which commonsense declared could not be paid,
But then white papers followed which insisted
That paid they must be, paid and without fail.
To meet that charge, I sold off shoes and clothing:
One's marrow froze; but not, thank God, in jail.
Last year my last clothes went. I found myself
Down to bare bone, with nothing left to sell
But flesh of my flesh. At the crossroads over there
I and my oldest daughter wept farewell.
Though my second daughter got engaged this year,
I'll have to flog her for her weight in rice.
There's still a third at home. One need not worry
About next year's taxes. I can find their price.
Fan Cheng-ta (1126-1193)
Telling the Truth
Coquettishly she asked, "This flower or I,
Which the more lovely?"
"Knowing," her lover said,
"Our love is such you would not have me lie,
I think the flower."
Outraged, "You think some dead
...
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