Three Dream Portraits is a song cycle of Langston Hughes poetry. It includes musical settings of Hughes's poems Minstrel Man, Dream Variation, and I, Too. Three Dream Portraits incorporates several of Hughes's most politically poignant poems. Bonds accompanied Hughes's literary climaxes with musical ones, making the pieces vocally challenging. Three Dream Portraits conforms to the art song style, composed for vocal performance. However its infusion of jazz characteristics makes it a departure from the traditional art song genre.

Because my mouth/Is wide with laughter/And my throat is deep with song
You do not think /I suffer after/I have held my pain so long?
Because my mouth /Is wide with laughter, /you do not hear my inner cry
Because my feet are gay with dancing, /you do not know I die?
- Minstrel Man