This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing

To waft me from distraction.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 85.

Oh the heart is a free and a fetterless thing,—

A wave of the ocean, a bird on the wing!

Julia Pardoe (1816-1862): The Captive Greek Girl.

Ruin seize thee, ruthless king!

Confusion on thy banners wait!

Though fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing,

They mock the air with idle state.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): The Bard. I. 1, Line 1.

Unless an age too late, or cold

Climate, or years, damp my intended wing.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ix. Line 44.

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.

O God! it is a fearful thing

To see the human soul take wing

In any shape, in any mood.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Prisoner of Chillon. Stanza 8.

The bird let loose in Eastern skies,

Returning fondly home,

Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies

Where idle warblers roam;

But high she shoots through air and light,

Above all low delay,

Where nothing earthly bounds her flight,

Nor shadow dims her way.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): Oh that I had Wings.

And o'er the past Oblivion stretch her wing.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Odyssey of Homer. Book xxiv. Line 557.

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.