Hard Work
Loafers beware: Heaney has a habit of glorifying hard work, particularly manual labor, in his poetry. Often, just as in this poem, there is a member of the younger generation looking up to a man of the older generation, and admiring his hard-working attitude and skill. (Just check out "Digging" for another example.)
While Heaney himself is more of an intellectual man (as are many of the speakers of his poems—coincidence?), his poems really do hanker after getting your hands dirty with some good old-fashioned hard work. Dirt and elbow grease abound in Seamus Heaney's poetry, so quit your goldbricking and roll up your sleeves.