 The writers of these poems took the five-character line of the "yuefu" and used it to express more complex ideas.The "shi" poem was generally an expression of the poet's own persona rather than the adopted characters of the "yuefu"; many were romantic nature poems heavily influenced by Taoism.The term "gushi" ("old poems") can refer either to the first, mostly anonymous "shi" poems, or more generally to the poems written in the same form by later poets.