The poem below on the pressing of peasantry into military service, and the one that follows it, illustrate his opposition to war. The poem on fireflies shows him reflecting on his own mortality, while the poem on the parrot can be seen as a protest against the way beauty is trapped and imprisoned. The dust swirls up in great dense clouds, And hides the Han Yang bridge. To farm in the west, far, far from home. Wu Huang Ti Is resolved to rule the world.
Husbands fighting or dead, wives drag the plow, And the grain grows wild in the fields.
I am greatly honored by your speech with me. All this long winter, conscription goes on Through the whole country, from the east to the west, And taxes grow heavy. We bury them after the fight, And they rot where the grass grows long. By two long, deadly arrows. The Fireflies At Wu Shan, of an autumn night, The fireflies come flitting Through the curtains Into my room, And flutter on my garments.