Emily Dickinson Lexicon

PO'EM, n. [L. poema; Gr. ποιημα, from ποιεω, to make, to compose songs. In Russ. poyu signifies to sing. The radical sense is the same, to strain.]

1. A metrical composition; a composition in which the verses consist of certain measures, whether in blank verse or in rhyme; as, the poems of Homer or of Milton: opposed to prose. – Dryden.
2. This term is also applied to some compositions in which the language is that of excited imagination; as, the poems of Ossian.