Traditional, 'What Plant Is Not Yellow?'

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What Plant Is Not Yellow?

What plant is not yellow?
What day is without a march?
What man is not on the move
Serving in the four quarters?

What plant is not black?
What man is not wifeless?
Heigho, for us soldiers!
We alone are not treated as men.

Not rhinoceroses, not tigers,
Yet we are loosed in this mighty waste.
Heigho, for us soldiers!
Day and night we never rest.

The fox with his broad brush
Lurks among the gloomy grass;
But our wagon with its bamboo body,
Rumbles along the road of Chou.

From 'The Book of Odes'