From
白居易 《
观刈麦》 ('Watching the Wheat Harvest,' middle Tang, c. 806 CE):
足蒸暑土气，
背灼炎天光。
力尽不知热，
但惜夏日长 (Feet steaming from hot earth, backs scorched by the blazing sun. Strength spent, they do not feel the heat - they only cherish the long summer day's light). Bai wrote it as a young magistrate in Zhouzhi, appalled at peasants' suffering; the poem ends with his own guilt at eating well while they starve.
