Be thou then my beauty named,
Since thy will is to be mine:
For by that am I enflamed,
Which on all alike doth shine.
Others may the light admire,
I onely truely feele the fire.

But, if lofty titles move thee,
Challenge then a Sov'raignes place:
Say I honour when I love thee,
Let me call thy kindnesse grace.
State and Love things divers bee,
Yet will we teach them to agree.

Or, if this be not sufficing,
Be thou stil'd my Goddesse then:
I will love thee sacrificing,
In thine honour Hymnes Ile pen.

Be the new year sweet and short
As the days of girl and boy are,
Full of friendship, full of sport —
Prosit Neujahr!

Be it beautiful and great
As the days of grief and joy are,
Full of wonder and of fate —
Prosit Neujahr!

Be swift, dear heart, in saying
The kindly word;
When ears are sealed thy passionate pleading
Will not be heard.

Be swift, dear heart, in doing
The gracious deed;
Lest soon, they whom thou holdest dearest
Be past thy need.

Be strong!
We are not here to play, to dream, to drift;
We have hard work to do, and loads to lift;
Shun not the struggle--face it; 'tis God's gift.

Be strong!
Say not, "The days are evil. Who's to blame?"
And fold the hands and acquiesce--oh shame!
Stand up, speak out, and bravely, in God's name.

Be strong!
It matters not how deep intrenched the wrong,
How hard the battle goes, the day how long;
Faint not--fight on! To-morrow comes the song.

Be still. The Hanging Gardens were a dream
That over Persian roses flew to kiss
The curled lashes of Semiramis.
Troy never was, nor green Skamander stream.
Provence and Troubadour are merest lies,
The glorious hair of Venice was a beam
Made within Titian's eye. The sunsets seem,
The world is very old and nothing is.
Be still. Thou foolish thing, thou canst not wake,
Nor thy tears wedge thy soldered lids apart,
But patter in the darkness of thy heart.
Thy brain is plagued. Thou art a frighted owl

Be still, my heart, and listen,
—For sweet and yet acute
I hear the wistful music
—Of Khristna and his flute.
Across the cool, blue evenings,
—Throughout the burning days,
Persuasive and beguiling,
—He plays and plays and plays.

Ah, none may hear such music
—Resistant to its charms,
The household work grows weary,
—And cold the husband's arms.
I must arise and follow,
—To seek, in vain pursuit,
The blueness and the distance,
—The sweetness of that flute!

In linked and liquid sequence,

Be proud as Spaniards! Leap for pride, ye fleas!
Henceforth in nature's minim world grandees,
In Phoebus' archives registered are ye —
And this your patent of nobility.
No skipjacks now, nor civiller skip-johns,
Dread Anthropophagi! Specks of living bronze,
I hail you one and all, sans pros or cons,
Descendants from a noble race of dons.

What though that great ancestral flea be gone,
Immortal with immortalizing Donne —
His earthly spots bleached off as Papists gloze
In purgatory fire on Bardolph's nose?

Be not proud, but now encline
Your soft eare to Discipline.
You have changes in your life,
Sometimes peace, and sometimes strife:
You have ebbes of face and flowes,
As your health or comes, or goes;
You have hopes, and doubts, and feares
Numberlesse, as are your haires.
You have Pulses that doe beat
High, and passions lesse of heat.
You are young, but must be old,
And, to these, ye must be told,
Time, ere long, will come and plow
Loathed Furrowes in your brow:
And the dimnesse of your eye
Will no other thing imply,

Be not afraid to pray — to pray is right.
Pray, if thou canst, with hope; but ever pray,
Though hope be weak, or sick with long delay;
Pray in the darkness, if there be no light.

Far is the time, remote from human sight,
When war and discord on the earth shall cease;
Yet every prayer for universal peace
Avails the blessed time to expedite.

Whate'er is good to wish, ask that of Heaven,
Though it be what thou canst not hope to see:
Pray to be perfect, though material leaven
Forbid the Spirit so on earth to be;

Be like the bird, who
Halting in his flight
On limb too slight
Feels it give way beneath him,
Yet sings
Knowing he hath wings.