Reading Comprehension Passage B
At the Crossroads
You to the left and I to the right,
For the ways of men must sever —
And it well may be for a day and a night,
And it well may be forever.
[5] But whether we meet or whether we part
(For our ways are past our knowing),
A pledge from the heart to its fellow heart
On the ways we all are going!
Here’s luck!
[10] For we know not where we are going.
We have striven1 fair in love and war,
But the wheel was always weighted;
We have lost the prize that we struggled for,
We have won the prize that was fated.
[15] We have met our loss with a smile and a song,
And our gains with a wink and a whistle, —
For, whether we’re right or whether we’re wrong,
There’s a rose for every thistle.
[20] Here’s luck —
And a drop to wet your whistle!
Whether we win or whether we lose
With the hands that life is dealing,
It is not we nor the ways we choose
[25] But the fall of the cards that’s sealing.
There’s a fate in love and a fate in fight,
And the best of us all go under —
And whether we’re wrong or whether we’re right,
[30] We win, sometimes, to our wonder.
Here’s luck —
That we may not yet go under!
With a steady swing and an open brow
We have tramped the ways together,
[35] But we’re clasping hands at the crossroads now
In the Fiend’s own night for weather;
And whether we bleed or whether we smile
In the leagues that lie before us,
The ways of life are many a mile
[40] And the dark of Fate is o’er us.
Here’s luck!
And a cheer for the dark before us!
You to the left and I to the right,
For the ways of men must sever,
[45] And it well may be for a day and a night,
And it well may be forever!
But whether we live or whether we die
(For the end is past our knowing),
Here’s two frank hearts and the open sky,
[50] Be a fair or an ill wind blowing!
Here’s luck!
In the teeth of2 all winds blowing.
—Richard Hovey
“At the Crossroads”
from Last Songs from Vagabondia
Small, Maynard & Company, 1900
1striven — struggled
2In the teeth of — in defiance of
