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IN PRAISE OF LIMESTONE / 243 5
In Praise of Limestone1
If it form the one landscape that we the inconstant ones Are consistently homesick for, this is chiefly Because it dissolves in water. Mark these rounded slopes With their surface fragrance of thyme and beneath 5 A secret system of caves and conduits; hear these springs That spurt out everywhere with a chuckle Each filling a private pool for its fish and carving Its own little ravine whose cliffs entertain The butterfly and the lizard; examine this region 10 Of short distances and definite places: What could be more like Mother or a fitter background For her son, for the nude young male who lounges Against a rock displaying his dildo,? never doubting penis That for all his faults he is loved, whose works are but 15 Extensions of his power to charm? From weathered outcrop To hill-top temple, from appearing waters to Conspicuous fountains, from a wild to a formal vineyard, Are ingenious but short steps that a child's wish To receive more attention than his brothers, whether 20 By pleasing or teasing, can easily take.
Watch, then, the band of rivals as they climb up and down Their steep stone gennels2 in twos and threes, sometimes Arm in arm, but never, thank God, in step; or engaged On the shady side of a square at midday in 25 Voluble discourse, knowing each other too well to think There are any important secrets, unable To conceive a god whose temper-tantrums are moral And not to be pacified by a clever line Or a good lay: for, accustomed to a stone that responds, 30 They have never had to veil their faces in awe Of a crater whose blazing fury could not be fixed; Adjusted to the local needs of valleys Where everything can be touched or reached by walking, Their eyes have never looked into infinite space 35 Through the lattice-work of a nomad's comb; born lucky, Their legs have never encountered the fungi 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 40 Remains comprehensible: to become a pimp Or deal in fake jewelry or ruin a fine tenor voice For effects that bring down the house could happen to all But the best and the worst of us . . . That is why, I suppose, The best and worst never stayed here long but sought
1. Inspired by the limestone landscape outside is to my 'Mutterland', the Pennines [hills in the Florence, Italy, where Auden and his longtime north of England]. Am in fact starting on a poem, companion Chester Kallman (1921?1975) were 'In Praise of Limestone', the theme of which is that staying; the poem also recalls the poet's native rock creates the only truly human landscape.' Yorkshire. In a letter to Elizabeth Mayer, Auden 2. Narrow passages between houses (Yorkshire wrote: 'I hadn't realised till I came how like Italy dialect) or, as here, rocks.
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2436 / W. H. AUDEN
45 Immoderate soils where the beauty was not so external, The light less public and the meaning of life Something more than a ma d camp. 'Come!' cried the granite wastes, 'How evasive is your humor, how accidental 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 tomb In the grand manner: soft as the earth is mankind and both Need to be altered.' (Intendant Caesars rose and 55 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.'
60 They were right, my dear, all those voices were right An d still are; this land is not the sweet home that it looks, Nor its peace the historical calm of a site Wher e something was settled once and for all: A backward An d dilapidated province, connected 65 To the big busy world by a tunnel, with a certain Seedy appeal, is that all it is now? Not quite: It has a worldly duty which in spite of itself It does not neglect, but calls into question All the Great Powers assume; it disturbs our rights. Th e poet, 70 Admired for his earnest habit of calling Th e sun the sun, his mind Puzzle, is made uneasy By these solid statues which so obviously doubt His antimythological myth; and these gamins,0 urchins Pursuing the scientist down the tiled colonnade 7 5 With such lively offers, rebuke his concern for Nature's Remotest aspects: I, too, am reproached, for what An d how muc h you know. Not to lose time, not to get caught, Not to be left behind, not, please! to resemble The beasts who repeat themselves, or a thing like water so Or stone whose conduct can be predicted, these Are our Commo n Prayer,3 whose greatest comfort is music Whic h can be made anywhere, is invisible, An d does not smell. In so far as we have to look forward To death as a fact, no doubt we are right: But if 85 Sins can be forgiven, if bodies rise from the dead, These modifications of matter into Innocent athletes and gesticulating fountains, Mad e solely for pleasure, make a further point: Th e blessed will not care what angle they are regarded from, 90 Having nothing to hide. Dear, I know nothing of Either, but when I try to imagine a faultless love Or the life to come, what I hear is the murmu r Of underground streams, what I see is a limestone landscape.
May 1948 1948,1951
3. The Book of Common Prayer is the liturgical book of the Anglican Church.
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THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES / 243 7
The Shield of Achilles1
She looked over his shoulder For vines and olive trees, Marble well-governed cities, An d ships upon untamed seas, 5 But there on the shining metal His hands had put instead An artificial wilderness An d a sky like lead.
A plain without a feature, bare and brown, 10 No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,
Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down, Yet, congregated on its blankness, stood An unintelligible multitude,
A million eyes, a million boots in line, 15 Without expression, waiting for a sign.
Out of the air a voice without a face Proved by statistics that some cause was just In tones as dry and level as the place: No one was cheered and nothing was discussed;
20 Column by column in a cloud of dust They marched away enduring a belief Whos e logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief.
She looked over his shoulder For ritual pieties, 25 White flower-garlanded heifers, Libation and sacrifice,2 But there on the shining metal Wher e the altar should have been, She saw by his flickering forge-light 30 Quite another scene.
Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke) An d sentries sweated, for the day was hot: A crowd of ordinary decent folk
