Giants

They were the giants, whose shoulders lift us high,
And we, the living, cast our patronising smiles
In weighing deeds of those whose grandeur we decry.
We judge them from the giddy heights of gifted breath,
Belittling those whose words have filled our breast-milk tomes,
So forgetting soon shall we join them in death
And then will others come and rifle through our bones,
To pick the choicest flesh from them – and discard the rest.
Then laugh at all our fears and our misapprehended woes
Themselves to glorify, to think the wisest and the best.

E.M. Swift-Hook