waste not want not: the return of the noble savage

I looked up at the sky on Tuesday and it was blue
I looked up at the sky on Sunday and it was gray
It brought the rain on Monday
And I was glad
Later it brought the first budding of the seeds
That laid dormant in the ground all winter
And with the birth of new seed brought the new calves to dwell
In the spaces of the land the rain and sun had touched
We watched them grow up and by fall it was time
We took as we needed
But never any more
There is no redemption in exploitation.
No pride in depletion.
No lust in squander.
No envy for that without use.
No greed for what one cannot share.
Only the wrath of extinction,
The environmentally inactive sloth,
And the gluttony of the remorseful over-indulgent savage.

"I am as free as nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran."

-Dryden's The Conquest of Granada, 1672