Auden's literary executor and biographer Edward Mendelson and others interpret the poem as an allegory of the human body, whose characteristics correspond to those of the limestone landscape. The poet recognises that this landscape, like the body, is not witness to great historical events, but exists at a scale most suitable to humans. "Limestone" questions the valuation of that which exists on a scale different from the body—politics, the fascination with consciousness, and other abstractions. In this interpretation the poem's ending lines justify the landscape in theological terms, and are also a theological statement of the body's sacred significance. The poem is thus an argument against Platonic and idealistic theologies in which the body is inherently fallen and inferior to the spirit. This interpretation is consistent with Auden's many prose statements about the theological importance of the body.