If I Were a Sunbeam
By Lucy Larcom
Annotations by Josh benjamin
"If I were a sunbeam,
I know what I'd do;
I would seek white lilies
Rainy woodlands through.
I would steal among them—
Softest light I'd shed;
Until every lily
Raised its dropping head.
"If I were a sunbeam
I know where I'd go;
Into lowliest hovels,
Dark with want and woe.
Til sad hearts looked upward,
I would shine and shine!
Then they'd think of heaven,
Their sweet home and mine.
Art thou not a sunbeam,
Child, whose life is glad
With an inner radiance
Sunshine never had?
O, as God hath blessed thee,
Scatter rays divine!
For there is no sunbeam
But must die or shine.
Larcom, lucy. “if i were a sunbeam.” The youth’s companion 37, No. 49 (December 1864): 195.
Contexts
The prefatory note to the 1892 Larcom collection, At the Beautiful Gate: and Other Songs of Faith, notes about the poems, “They do not claim to be songs or hymns in any restricted sense, although a number of them have been included in hymn-books, both, here and in England. The themes of some of them are drawn from nature and from friendship, as well as from religion; and some of them may be regarded simply as meditations. But hymns may be written either to read or to sing; and sometimes not even to read aloud, but only for the wordless response of feeling and thought, —the truest singing being indeed but a voice-rendering of this silent inner melody. That nature and human affection belong to our most sacred inspirations, scarcely needs to be affirmed.” Lyricist Jerome McCauley and composer W. E. M. Hackleman added a refrain and published the poem as a hymn copyrighted in 1907.
Resources for Further Study
- Larcom’s autobiography, A New England Girlhood, is her account of life as a textile mill worker.
- The Lowell National Historical Park in Lowell, Massachusetts, has preserved the history of New England female textile workers.
