Ballad Of The Army Carts Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCDEAFGHIJKLFMNOPQ RSNETUUUVUUEUEWXG| Wagons rattling and banging | A |
| horses neighing and snorting | A |
| conscripts marching each with bow and arrows at his hip | B |
| fathers and mothers wives and children running to see them off | C |
| so much dust kicked up you can't see Xian yang Bridge | D |
| And the families pulling at their clothes stamping feet in anger | E |
| blocking the way and weeping | A |
| ah the sound of their wailing rises straight up to assault heaven | F |
| And a passerby asks 'What's going on ' | G |
| The soldier says simply 'This happens all the time | H |
| From age fifteen some are sent to guard the north | I |
| and even at forty some work the army farms in the west | J |
| When they leave home the village headman has to wrap their turbans for them | K |
| when they come back white haired they're still guarding the frontier | L |
| The frontier posts run with blood enough to fill an ocean | F |
| and the war loving Emperor's dreams of conquest have still not ended | M |
| Hasn't he heard that in Han east of the mountains | N |
| there are two hundred prefectures thousands and thousands of villages | O |
| growing nothing but thorns | P |
| And even where there is a sturdy wife to handle hoe and plough | Q |
| the poor crops grow raggedly in haphazard fields | R |
| It's even worse for the men of Qin they're such good fighters | S |
| they're driven from battle to battle like dogs or chickens | N |
| Even though you were kind enough to ask good sir | E |
| perhaps I shouldn't express such resentment | T |
| But take this winter for instance | U |
| they still haven't demobilized the troops of Guanxi | U |
| and the tax collectors are pressing everyone for land fees | U |
| land fees from where is that money supposed to come | V |
| Truly it is an evil thing to bear a son these days | U |
| it is much better to have daughters | U |
| at least you can marry a daughter to the neighbor | E |
| but a son is born only to die his body lost in the wild grass | U |
| Has my lord seen the shores of the Kokonor | E |
| The white bones lie there in drifts uncollected | W |
| New ghosts complain and old ghosts weep | X |
| under the lowering sky their voices cry out in the rain ' | G |
Du Fu
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