Harlem by Langston Hughes | Poetry Foundation https://www.poetryfoundation.

org/poems/46548/harlem

Harlem
BY L ANGSTON H UGH E S

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?

Langston Hughes, "Harlem" from The Collected Works of Langston Hughes. Copyright © 2002 by Langston
Hughes. Reprinted by permission of Harold Ober Associates, Inc.

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Harlem by Langston Hughes | Poetry Foundation https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46548/harlem

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