Li Po

War last year at the Sang-kan's headwaters,
war this year on the roads at Ts'ung River:

We've rinsed weapons clean in T'iao-chich sea-swells
pastured horses in T'ien Mountain's snowbound grasses,

war in ten-thousand-mile campaigns
leaving our Three Armies old and broken,

but the Hsiung-nu have made slaughter their own
                                                          version of plowing.

It never changes:  nothing since ancient times but
                           bleached bones in fields of yellow sand.

A Ch'in emperor built the Great Wall to seal Mongols out,
and still in the Han, we're setting beacon fires ablaze.

Beacon fires ablaze everlasting,
no end to forced marches and war,

it's fight to the death in outland war,
wounded horses wailing, crying out toward heaven,

Hawks and crows tearing at people,
lifting off to scatter dangling entrails in dying trees.

Tangled grasses lie matted with death,
but generals keep at it.  And for what?

Isn't it clear that weapons are the tools of misery?
The great sages never waited until the need
                                                  for such things arose.