Passing By the Battlefield at Feng-k'ou

The road turns back, the desolate mountain parts:
it's like emerging from a frontier pass.
Startled sand flits up on all four sides;
a chill sun dims almost to darkness.
Above are the caws of famished crows,
below, the roots of withered tumbleweeds.
White bones lie strewn before our horses:
who can tell the rich men from the poor?
We do not know which generals they were
who in the past did battle in this place.
I want to question someone on the way,
but villages we pass are all deserted.
We climb a hill and view the ruined encampments;
ghosts rise into clustered clouds of grief.
The 100,000 troops who fought here then,
of those defeated, could any still survive?
That old man, alone, must be here now
to mourn some son or grandson he has lost.
For years now there's been no end to war,
the strong and weak both swallowed up by it.
In the end, who earns fame and merit?
They've been killing people everywhere on earth.
Ashamed I have no plan to end this chaos,
I stand stock still, lamentation in my soul.
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Author of original: 
Kao Ch'i
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