Poems come in all shapes and sizes, and are often set to music to form a pop or classical song, opera, or religious hymn.
The lyrics of your favourite pop song are really a poem, and if you take away the music, the words of most hymns are stand-alone poems.
A song's lyrics have a rhythm, they sometimes rhyme, and they paint a picture or express simple or complicated emotions ... just like a poem.
Songs of praise
A hymn is a religious song, and in the Christian church, hymns are usually written to praise God and his power. Hymns are a great source of poetry.
The word 'hymn' comes from the Greek hymnos , which means 'song of praise'. In the 18th and 19th centuries in Britain and America, there was an explosion of hymn writing. Hymn writers and poets, like Charles Wesley (1707-88), wrote beautiful and dramatic hymns that are still sung in churches all over the world. American hymns gave rise to gospel music, and this, in turn, has had a great effect on some of today's pop music.
Cecil Alexander's hymn