白居易 wrote it in 806 as a county official at Zhouzhi, near Chang'an. He describes the reapers,
足蒸暑土气，
背灼炎天光, 'their feet steamed by the hot earth, their backs scorched by the blazing sky', and a poor woman gleaning with a child in her arms because her family's land was sold to pay taxes. He ends ashamed that he lives on a salary of grain without ever working the fields.
