I thank the goodness and the grace

Which on my birth have smiled,

And made me, in these Christian days,

A happy Christian child.

Jane Taylor (1783-1824): A Child's Hymn of Praise.

And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness,

Round our restlessness His rest.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1809-1861): Rhyme of the Duchess.

It sounds like stories from the land of spirits

If any man obtains that which he merits,

Or any merit that which he obtains.

  .   .   .   .   .   .   .

Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!

Hath he not always treasures, always friends,

The good great man? Three treasures,—love and light,

And calm thoughts, regular as infants' breath;

And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,—

Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): Complaint. Ed. 1852. The Good Great Man. Ed. 1893.

But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand,

And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 198.

Abash'd the devil stood,

And felt how awful goodness is, and saw

Virtue in her shape how lovely.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 846.

There is some soul of goodness in things evil,

Would men observingly distil it out.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 1.

If goodness lead him not, yet weariness

May toss him to my breast.

George Herbert (1593-1632): The Pulley.

To sorrow

I bade good-morrow,

And thought to leave her far away behind;

But cheerly, cheerly,

She loves me dearly;

She is so constant to me, and so kind.

John Keats (1795-1821): Endymion. Book iv.

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Measure for Measure. Act iii. Sc. 1.

When good men die their goodness does not perish,

But lives though they are gone. As for the bad,

All that was theirs dies and is buried with them.

Euripides (484-406 b c): Temenidae. Frag. 734.

And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps

At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity

Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill

Where no ill seems.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iii. Line 686.