That young men died, who readie were to wed:
And age did revell with his bonny-lasse,
Composing girlonds for his hoarie head:
Invert not Nature, oh ye Powers twaine,
Giue Cvpid’s dartes, and Death take thine againe.”
Whitney luxuriates in this epithet “golden;”—golden fleece, golden hour, golden pen, golden sentence, golden book, golden palm are found recorded in his pages. At p. 214 we have the lines,—
“A Leaden sworde, within a goulden sheathe,
Is like a foole of natures finest moulde,
To whome, shee did her rarest giftes bequethe,
Or like a sheepe, within a fleece of goulde.”