What is the tone of Langston Hughes's poem "Dreams"?

The term tone is defined as the author's attitude "toward a subject or an audience" ("Tone," Literary Devices). We can detect multiple tones in Langston Hughes's short poem "Dream."

Since Hughes opens with a command for his audience, as we see in the phrase "[h]old fast," we can say that the first attitude he takes toward his audience is didactic, meaning instructive. He is very serious about teaching his audience his wisdom concerning holding on to their dreams thereby encouraging his audience.

Hughes's poem is also filled with images of death such as the "broken-winged bird" that will surely die because it cannot survive without the ability to fly and the "barren field" that is not producing crops because it is dead, suffocated beneath the freezing cold snow. Since an underlying subject of his poem is civil injustices, his use of death images show he fully understands the pain his audience has endured at the hands of civil injustices due to racial prejudices. Therefore, his words also express a sorrowful tone felt concerning the subject of civil injustices. Yet, at the same time, since he speaks of the ability to "[h]old fast to dreams," he also expresses a vaguely optimistic tone that further expresses his earnest desire for African Americans to not let their dreams of freedom die.