Po"em (?), n. [L. poema, Gr. , fr. to make, to compose, to write, especially in verse: cf. F. poeme.]

1.

A metrical composition; a composition in verse written in certain measures, whether in blank verse or in rhyme, and characterized by imagination and poetic diction; -- contradistinguished from prose; as, the poems of Homer or or Milton.

2.

A composition, not in verse, of which the language is highly imaginative or impassioned; as, a prose poem; the poems of Ossian.

 

© Webster 1913.