The longest farming poem in The Book of Songs is

The longest farming poem in The Book of Songs is July. This poem reflects the working life of the Zhou tribe all the year round, involving all aspects of food, clothing, housing and transportation, and shows the genre paintings of the society at that time from spring ploughing, autumn harvest, winter storage, mulberry picking, dyeing and weaving, sewing, hunting, building houses, brewing wine, labor, feasting and so on.

The whole poem consists of eight chapters. The first chapter summarizes the life of workers all year round in a bird's eye way, which brings readers into that tragic and difficult era at once, and also lays the tone for the following chapters, prompting the general outline. The second and third chapters are gradually filled with high emotions and bright colors. Although the fourth and fifth chapters developed from the line of "the beginning of clothes", they also developed and changed. "Xiunan" and "Mingmi" have fun meanings, and the following focuses on hunting. Chapter six, chapter seven and chapter eight, with "the beginning of food" as the main line, show the simple and peaceful life of farmers.

The whole Book of Songs is dominated by lyric poems, with few narrative poems. This poem, however, is mainly narrative, with vivid images and rich poetry. Through the beautiful narration of the characters in the poem, it truly shows the labor scene, life picture and the faces of various characters at that time, as well as the relationship between farmers and the people, which constitutes a genre painting interwoven by men and women in the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty.