A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod;

An honest man's the noblest work of God.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 247.

Like feather bed betwixt a wall

And heavy brunt of cannon ball.

Samuel Butler (1600-1680): Hudibras. Part i. Canto ii. Line 872.

To waft a feather or to drown a fly.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Night thoughts. Night i. Line 154.

The feather, whence the pen

Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men,

Dropped from an angel's wing.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part iii. v. Walton's Book of Lives.

Let no man value at a little price

A virtuous woman's counsel; her wing'd spirit

Is feather'd oftentimes with heavenly words.

George Chapman (1557-1634): The Gentleman Usher. Act iv. Sc. 1.

The day is done, and the darkness

Falls from the wings of Night,

As a feather is wafted downward

From an eagle in his flight.

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): The Day is done.

That eagle's fate and mine are one,

Which on the shaft that made him die

Espied a feather of his own,

Wherewith he wont to soar so high.

Edmund Waller (1605-1687): To a Lady singing a Song of his Composing.

So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,

No more through rolling clouds to soar again,

View'd his own feather on the fatal dart,

And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Line 826.