Today's Stichomancy for B. F. Skinner

The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

Friends before swine.

Rather strong? I knew as much, For it made you speak. No offense to swine, as such, But why this hide-and-seek? You have something on your side, And you wish you might have died, So you tell me. And you tried One night last week?

You tried hard? And even then Found a time to pause?