Imposter! Do not charge most innocent Nature,

As if she would her children should be riotous

With her abundance. She, good cateress,

Means her provision only to the good,

That live according to her sober laws,

And holy dictate of spare Temperance.

If every just man that now pines of want

Had a moderate and beseeming share

Of that which lewdly pampered luxury

Now heaps upon some few with vast excess,

Nature’s full blessings would be well-dispensed

In unsuperfluous even proportion,

And she no whit encumbered with her store;

And then the Giver would be better thanked,

His praise due paid; for swinish gluttony

Ne’er looks to heaven amidst his gorgeous feast,

But with besotted base ingratitude

Crams and blasphemes his Feeder….

John Milton (1608-74), Comus. 1634.