My Muse sits forlorn
She wishes she had not been born
She sits in the cold
No word she says is ever told.
Why does my Muse only speak when she is unhappy?
She does not, I only listen when I am unhappy
When I am happy I live and despise writing
For my Muse this cannot but be dispiriting.—Stevie Smith, “My Muse,” in New Selected Poems of Stevie Smith, p. 95