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In Praise Of Limestone

If it form the one landscape that we, the inconstant ones,     Are consistently homesick for, this is

Because it dissolves in water.

Mark these rounded slopes     With their surface fragrance of thyme and, beneath,

A secret system of caves and conduits; hear the springs     That spurt out everywhere with a chuckle,

Each filling a private pool for its fish and carving     Its own little ravine whose cliffs

The butterfly and the lizard; examine this region     Of short distances and definite places:

What could be more like Mother or a fitter background     For her son, the flirtatious male who

Against a rock in the sunlight, never doubting     That for all his faults he is loved; whose works are

Extensions of his power to charm?

From weathered outcrop     To hill-top temple, from appearing waters

Conspicuous fountains, from a wild to a formal vineyard,     Are ingenious but short steps that a child's

To receive more attention than his brothers, whether     By pleasing or teasing, can easily take.

Watch, then, the band of rivals as they climb up and down     Their steep stone gennels in twos and threes, at

Arm in arm, but never, thank God, in step; or engaged     On the shady side of a square at midday

Voluble discourse, knowing each other too well to think     There are any important secrets,

To conceive a god whose temper-tantrums are moral     And not to be pacified by a clever

Or a good lay: for accustomed to a stone that responds,     They have never had to veil their faces in

Of a crater whose blazing fury could not be fixed;     Adjusted to the local needs of

Where everything can be touched or reached by walking,     Their eyes have never looked into infinite

Through the lattice-work of a nomad's comb; born lucky,     Their legs have never encountered the

And insects of the jungle, the monstrous forms and lives     With which we have nothing, we like to hope, in common.

So, when one of them goes to the bad, the way his mind works     Remains incomprehensible: to become a

Or deal in fake jewellery or ruin a fine tenor voice     For effects that bring down the house, could happen to

But the best and the worst of us…                                             That is why,

I suppose,     The best and worst never stayed here long but

Immoderate soils where the beauty was not so external,     The light less public and the meaning of

Something more than a mad camp. 'Come!' cried the granite wastes,     "How evasive is your humour, how

Your kindest kiss, how permanent is death." (Saints-to-be     Slipped away sighing.) "Come!" purred the clays and gravels,"On our plains there is room for armies to drill; rivers     Wait to be tamed and slaves to construct you a

In the grand manner: soft as the earth is mankind and both     Need to be altered." (Intendant Caesars rose

Left, slamming the door.) But the really reckless were fetched     By an older colder voice, the oceanic whisper:"I am the solitude that asks and promises nothing;     That is how I shall set you free.

There is no love;

There are only the various envies, all of them sad."     They were right, my dear, all those voices were

And still are; this land is not the sweet home that it looks,     Nor its peace the historical calm of a

Where something was settled once and for all:

A back ward     And dilapidated province,

To the big busy world by a tunnel, with a certain     Seedy appeal, is that all it is now?

Not quite:

It has a worldy duty which in spite of itself     It does not neglect, but calls into

All the Great Powers assume; it disturbs our rights.

The poet,     Admired for his earnest habit of

The sun the sun, his mind Puzzle, is made uneasy     By these marble statues which so obviously

His antimythological myth; and these gamins,     Pursuing the scientist down the tiled

With such lively offers, rebuke his concern for Nature's     Remotest aspects:

I, too, am reproached, for

And how much you know.

Not to lose time, not to get caught,     Not to be left behind, not, please! to

The beasts who repeat themselves, or a thing like water     Or stone whose conduct can be predicted,

Are our common prayer, whose greatest comfort is music     Which can be made anywhere, is invisible,

And does not smell.

In so far as we have to look forward     To death as a fact, no doubt we are right:

But

Sins can be forgiven, if bodies rise from the dead,     These modifications of matter

Innocent athletes and gesticulating fountains,     Made solely for pleasure, make a further point:

The blessed will not care what angle they are regarded from,     Having nothing to hide.

Dear,

I know nothing

Either, but when I try to imagine a faultless love     Or the life to come, what I hear is the

Of underground streams, what I see is a limestone landscape.                                             May 1948

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W H Auden

Wystan Hugh Auden (21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was an Anglo-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical ac…

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