Epitaph. for One Who Would Not Be Buried in Westminster Abbey.
Heroes and kings! your distance keep: In peace let one poor poet sleep, Who never flatter'd folks like you: Let Horace blush, and Virgil too.
Alexander Pope
Heroes and kings! your distance keep: In peace let one poor poet sleep, Who never flatter'd folks like you: Let Horace blush, and Virgil too.
Alexander Pope imagines his own gravestone speaking, shooing away the grand figures of power and fame. Right away, the tone is half-mocking, half-wistful: “Heroes and kings! your distance keep.” He wants no fancy burial among the mighty in Westminster Abbey.
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