Dreams

Summary

Dreams is an eight-line poem by Langston Hughes, first printed in May 1923 in The World Tomorrow, a Christian pacifist monthly published in New York, on a page that also carried his poem Our Land. Hughes was twenty-one. The version hosted here is that first printing, in which the speaker addresses his listener directly as my son and O boy. In the version most often reprinted today those words are gone, and the poem begins simply Hold fast to dreams. The poem has two stanzas of four lines, built on the same pattern. In the first, the speaker urges the young listener to hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. In the second he repeats the charge, for when dreams go, life is a barren field frozen with snow. Each stanza gives one command and one picture of what happens when the command is ignored. The two metaphors are carefully chosen. A bird is made to fly; a bird with a broken wing is still alive but cannot do what it was made for. A field is made to bear a harvest; a barren field frozen with snow can produce nothing. Dreams, in the poem, are the hopes and aims that let a life rise and bear fruit. To lose them is not to die but to be grounded and frozen. The direct address in the 1923 version makes the poem sound like counsel passed from an elder to a young man, close in spirit to Hughes's Mother to Son, printed the year before. The plain words, the short lines and the simple rhymes of die and fly, go and snow make it one of the easiest poems in the library to memorize. Teachers can take the poem straight. It urges perseverance and hope, and the Christian tradition agrees that hope must be held fast. Students can then ask what makes a dream worth holding and where hope that does not fail finally comes from.

Plot or Argument

• The broken-winged bird (stanza 1)

  The speaker urges his son to hold fast to dreams, because if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

• The frozen field (stanza 2)

  Repeating the charge to O boy, he warns that when dreams go, life is a barren field frozen with snow.

• The lesson of the pattern

  Each stanza pairs one command with one image of loss, so that the poem teaches by repetition and picture rather than by argument.

Characters

• The speaker, Speaker

  An elder, perhaps a parent, who gives a young man earnest advice about keeping his hopes alive.

• The son, Listener

  The young person addressed as my son and O boy, who is being urged not to give up his dreams.

Lessons

• Hold fast

  The poem's only command is to hold fast. Dreams do not keep themselves; they must be gripped through difficulty. Students can discuss what it means to keep a good aim steadily over years.

  • What does hold fast mean? What do you hold fast to?
  • Why would dreams die or go away if we do not hold them?
  • Who in your life has encouraged you to keep going toward a goal?

• Two pictures of a life without hope

  A broken-winged bird and a frozen field are both alive or real but unable to do what they were made for. Students can learn how a good metaphor explains an idea by a picture they can see.

  • What is a bird made to do? What is a field made to do?
  • Which picture seems sadder to you, and why?
  • Draw or describe your own picture of a life full of hope.

• Advice from one generation to the next

  In the 1923 printing the speaker calls the listener my son and O boy. Like the father in Proverbs and the mother in Hughes's Mother to Son, he hands down wisdom to the young. Hughes wrote it during years when Black Americans faced segregation and many closed doors, which gives the counsel added weight.

  • How does knowing the speaker is talking to his son change the poem?
  • Why might a parent especially want to tell a child not to give up dreams?
  • Compare this speaker with the mother in Mother to Son.

Context

In 1923 Hughes was a young poet who had left Columbia University and was working odd jobs in and around New York, soon to sail as a crewman to West Africa. Black Americans of the period faced legal segregation in the South and widespread discrimination in the North, and the Harlem Renaissance was beginning to give Black writers a wider audience.

Composition

The poem was printed in the May 1923 issue of The World Tomorrow, published by the Fellowship Press in New York, directly after Hughes's signed poem Our Land on the same page. Hughes revised it later; the familiar reprinted version drops the address to my son and O boy.

Reception

In its revised form Dreams became one of Hughes's most widely taught poems, reprinted in school readers, posters and classrooms across the country. The first printing, with its direct address to a son, is less well known.

Comparisons

• Mother to Son

  Printed only months earlier, Mother to Son also gives a young man hard-won counsel to keep going, in the voice of a mother climbing a rough stair.

• “Hope” Is the Thing with Feathers

  Dickinson pictures hope as a bird that sings in every storm; Hughes pictures a life without dreams as a bird that cannot fly.

• If—

  Kipling's If is also a father's advice to his son about perseverance, but long and detailed where Hughes is brief and pictorial.

• The Souls of Black Folk

  Du Bois writes of the hopes and frustrated strivings of Black Americans at the turn of the century, the larger story behind Hughes's plea not to let dreams die.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The words my son and O boy, which show the poem is advice spoken to a young person.
• The repeated command hold fast to dreams at the start of each stanza.
• The bird and the field, and what each is unable to do.
• The rhymes die and fly, go and snow.

Key terms and names

Hold fast

To grip tightly and not let go; to keep hold of something through difficulty.

Metaphor

A comparison that says one thing is another, as when life without dreams is a broken-winged bird.

Barren

Unable to grow crops or bear fruit; empty and unproductive.

Stanza

A group of lines in a poem, like a paragraph; Dreams has two stanzas of four lines.

Address

Speaking directly to someone; the speaker addresses my son and O boy.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What does the speaker tell his son to do in both stanzas?
2. Comprehension What two pictures does the poem give of a life without dreams?
3. Interpretation Why is a bird with a broken wing a good picture of a life without dreams?
4. Interpretation What is the difference between dreams dying and dreams going? Why might Hughes use both?
5. Interpretation How does the poem change if the speaker is a father talking to his son?
6. Big Question What makes a dream worth holding onto, and when should a person let a dream go?
7. Big Question Where can a person find hope that will not die when hard times come?

Faith Connections

• Isaiah 40:31 (Scripture)

  They that wait upon the LORD shall mount up with wings as eagles; Scripture answers the broken-winged bird with a promise of renewed strength from God.

• Proverbs 13:12 (Scripture)

  Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life, a proverb that, like Hughes, connects hope with a living, fruitful life.

• Hebrews 10:23 (Scripture)

  Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; for he is faithful that promised, the same command to hold fast, grounded in God's faithfulness.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: If dreams die, life becomes like a bird that cannot fly; if dreams go, life becomes like a frozen, barren field; therefore a young person should hold fast to dreams.

Rhetorical device: Parallelism. Both stanzas follow the same pattern: Hold fast to dreams, a reason beginning For if or For when, and a picture of what life becomes.

Debate: Resolved: Holding fast to dreams is more important than achieving them.

Memory Work

Hold fast to dreams, my son, For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly

Hold fast to dreams, O boy, For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow

Writing Prompts

Essay: Explain what Hughes means by dreams in this poem and why he believes holding fast to them is necessary for a full life.

Comparison with “Hope” Is the Thing with Feathers: Both Dickinson and Hughes use a bird to talk about hope. Compare Dickinson's singing bird with Hughes's broken-winged bird and explain what each image teaches.

Creative Prompts

• Poetry

  Write two four-line stanzas that each begin with the same piece of advice and end with a different picture of what happens if the advice is ignored.

• Classroom

  Have students memorize the poem, then draw the broken-winged bird and the frozen field and write beneath each a sentence about what the picture means.

• Essay

  Explain how the two metaphors in Dreams work and why Hughes might have chosen a bird and a field rather than other images.

Further Reading

• The Dream Keeper and Other Poems, Langston Hughes

  Hughes's own selection of poems for young readers.

• The Weary Blues, Langston Hughes

  His first book of poems (1926), which collected Mother to Son.

• The Life of Langston Hughes, Arnold Rampersad

  The standard two-volume biography.

• The Big Sea, Langston Hughes

  Hughes's 1940 memoir of his childhood, travels and the Harlem Renaissance.