The Traveler

Pablo Neruda writes:

They are not so sad these stones.
Inside them lives the gold,
holding seeds of planets,
holding bells in their depths,
gauntlets of iron, marriage
of time with amethysts:
within they laugh with rubies!
they were nourished by lightning.

For what, traveler, beware
of the sadness of the road,
of the mysteries in the walls.

Much it cost me to learn
that not all is alive without,
and not all is dead within,
and that Age inscribes letters
with water and stone for no one,
so that none may know where,
so that none may understand.