 " In Praise of Limestone " is a poem written by W. H. Auden in Italy in May 1948 . Central to his canon and one of Auden 's finest poems , it has been the subject of diverse scholarly interpretations . Auden 's limestone landscape has been interpreted as an allegory of Mediterranean civilization and of the human body . The poem , sui generis , is not easily classified . As a topographical poem , it describes a landscape and infuses it with meaning . It has been called the " first … postmodern pastoral " . In a letter , Auden wrote of limestone and the poem 's theme that " that rock creates the only human landscape . " 
