阮籍 wrote these five-character poems under the tightening rule of the
司马 clan, and they speak of the times only through images. The first begins
夜中不能寐，
起坐弹鸣琴。 'In the night I cannot sleep; I sit up and play my sounding qin.' Later poets imitated them, and the word also appears in other titles, such as
杜甫's 《
咏怀古迹》, in the sense 'to put one's feelings into verse'.
