sentences:  A revised version was published beginning in 1958, and is prominently placed in the last chronological section of Auden's "Collected Shorter Poems, 1922–1957" (1966).Auden visited Ischia, an island in the Gulf of Naples, with Chester Kallman, in spring and summer 1948, and spent about six weeks on Ischia; "In Praise of Limestone" was the first poem he wrote in Italy.The titular limestone is characteristic of the Mediterranean landscape and is considered an allegory of history in the poem; the properties of this sedimentary rock invoke the sedentary and domestic picture of Mediterranean culture.