"Dreams" is an early poem by American poet Langston Hughes, one of the leading figures of the 1920s arts and literary movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. Originally published in the magazine The World Tomorrow in 1923, it explores themes that would echo throughout Hughes's work: the sustaining power of dreams (especially in the face of difficult realities) and the problems that arise when dreams are thwarted or abandoned. Its two short stanzas deliver an urgent warning never to let dreams die.