Alexander Pope imagines his own gravestone and immediately makes it clear that he couldn’t care less what it’s made of—marble, a sill, plain turf, no matter. Even what an heir or friend might inscribe is irrelevant to him. This isn’t bitterness but a deep, breezy detachment: he never paid mind to others’ chatter during his life, and death hasn’t changed that. What actually matters, he suggests, lies beyond any monument. The closing lines shift into a calm, almost radiant trust. Living and dying, he’s been serene and free, and he rests in the belief that God will keep him just as whole as he was before. The whole poem feels like a gentle, knowing smile—a man utterly at peace, waving away fuss and slipping into eternity with quiet confidence.
Epitaph. Another, on the Same. — Summary
Under this marble, or under this sill, Or under this turf, or e'en what they will; Whatever an heir, or a friend in his stead, Or any good creature shall lay o'er my head, Lies one who ne'er cared, and still cares not a pin What they said, or may say, of the mortal within: But who, living and dying, serene still and free, Trusts in God, that as well as he was, he shall be.