The Collected Poems

Harlem What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?

Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die life is a broken-winged bird that can not fly. Hold fast to dreams for when dreams go life is a barren field frozen with snow.

To some people Love is given, To others Only Heaven.

America is a dream. The poet says it was promises. The people say it is promises—that will come true. The people do not always say things out loud, Nor write them down on paper. The people often hold Great thoughts in their deepest hearts And sometimes only blunderingly express them, Haltingly and stumbling say them, And faultily put them into practice. The people do not always understand each other. But there is, somewhere there, Always the trying to understand, And the trying to say, "You are a man. Together we are building our land.

Gather up In the arms of your love—Those who expect No love from above.

I wish the rent Was heaven sent.

The past has been a mint Of blood and sorrow. That must not be True of tomorrow.

Life dosent frighten me at all.

Go home and write / a page tonight. / And let that page come out of you - / Then, it will be true.

Besides, They’ll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed— I, too, am America.