Preamble, introduction to read in literary composition

Usage examples of proem.

As I may, without vanity, presume that the name and official description prefixed to this Proem will secure it, from the sedate and reflecting part of mankind, to whom only I would be understood to address myself, such attention as is due to the sedulous instructor of youth, and the careful performer of my Sabbath duties, I will forbear to hold up a candle to the daylight, or to point out to the judicious those recommendations of my labours which they must necessarily anticipate from the perusal of the title-page.

This is a mere guess: we have no information as to how the evolutions of a Proem differed from those of a regular Choral Ode.

John is regarded as the writer of the proem to the fourth Gospel, also of three brief epistles.

Even the papal envoy will understand that there is a difference between the act of a madman or a sanguinary, or perhaps only of a lost soul, and the grave proems that upright men will meet to discuss.