…‘Your obligation
Is not discharged by any common rite.
What you must do must be done on your own

So get back in harness. The main thing is to write
For the joy of it. Cultivate a work-lust
That imagines its haven like your hands at night

Dreaming the sun in the sunspot of a breast.
You are fasted now, light-headed, dangerous.
Take off from here. And don’t be so earnest,

Let others wear the sackcloth and the ashes.
Let go, let fly, forget.
You’ve listened long enough. Now strike your note.’

–from Seamus Heaney’s Station Island