Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE PLANTED HEEL by ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER-COUCH

Poet Analysis

First Line: BY TALLAND CHURCH AS I DID GO
Last Line: BETTER, PERHAPS, ON A PLANTED KNEE.'
Subject(s): ANCESTRY & ANCESTORS; DEATH; INHERITANCE AND SUCCESSION; DEAD, THE;
By Talland Church as I did go,
I passed my kindred all in a row;

Straight and silent there by the spade
Each in his narrow chamber laid.

While I passed, each kinsman's clay
Stole some virtue of mine away:

Till my shoes on the muddy road
Left not a print, so light they trod.

Back I went to the Bearers' Lane,
Begged the dead for my own again.

Answered the eldest one of my line—
'Thy heart was no one's heart but mine.'

The second claimed my working skill,
The third my wit, the fourth my will:

The fifth one said, 'Thy feet I gave;
But want no fleetness here in the grave.'

'For feet a man need have no care,
If they no weight of his own may bear,

'If I own naught by separate birth,
What binds my heel e'en now to the earth?'

The dead together answered back—
'Naught but the wealth in thy knapsack.'

'Nay, then,' said I, 'that's quick to unload':
And strewed my few pence out on the road.

'O kinsmen, now be quick, resume
Each rag of me to its rightful tomb!'

The dead were silent then for a space.
Still I stood upright in my place.

Said one, 'Some strength he will yet conceal.
'Belike 'tis pride of a planted heel?

'Man has but one perduring pride:
Of knowledge alone he is justified.

'Lie down, lie down by us in the sod:
Thou shalt be wise in the ways of God.'

'Nay, so I stand upright in the dust,
I'll take God's purposes all on trust.

'An inch of heel for a yard of spine,—
So give me again the goods that are mine!'

I planted my heel by their headstones,
And wrestled an hour with my kinsmen's bones.

I shook their dust thrice into a sieve,
And gathered all that they had to give.

I winnowed knowledge out of the heap:
'Take it,' I said, 'to warm your sleep.'

I cast their knowledge back on the sod,
And went on my journey, praising God.

Of all their knowledge I thought me rid:
But one little grain in my pack had hid.—

Now, as I go, myself I tell,
'On a planted heel man wrestles well.'

But that little grain keeps whispering me—
'Better, perhaps, on a planted knee.'



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