Under The Moonlight Poem by Masaoka Shiki

this is an example of Chinese poetry written by Shiki when he was very young

In those days Chinese poetry and prose were considered as important learning and culture, so even young children used to compose them. The interesting thing about this young Shiki's Chinese poem is that he composed on a sad voice of cuckoo which would cough up blood. Later on, in his life, he too was to cough out blood, so he picked out his pen name [Shiki = a hototogisu]. Shiki wrote about 900 Chinese poems in his life. terebess.hu/

Shiki was in the fifth grade (that is about the age of 10) when he composed this Chinese poem. It is said that a Japanese cuckoo, hototogisu, [from where 'Shiki' comes] will sing until it coughs out blood because of its sad voice.