Today's Stichomancy for Italo Calvino

The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson:

We have lived, my love - O, we have loved, my love.

Frost has bound our flowing river, Snow has whitened all our island brake, And beside the winter fagot Joan and Darby doze and dream and wake. Still, in the river of dreams Swims the boat of love - Hark! chimes the falling oar! And again in winter evens When on firelight dreaming fancy feeds,