What need have you of praising? Could I find <br />Some lonely poet no one praises yet, <br />Him rather would I choose, that he might know <br />A fellow-craftsman knew him, marked him, loved. <br />But you — the whole world praises you. What need <br />Have you of any speech I have to give? <br />Yet for the craft's sake I must give you praise; <br />And for the craft's sake you will pardon me. <br />But I would rather meet you face to face <br />And talk of other and indifferent things, <br />And say no word of all that I would say, <br />Praise and thanksgiving for your splendid song, <br />Praise and the pride of the empires of the Blood — <br />But leave you, silent, as we English do — <br />And you would know — and you would understand.<br /><br />Bliss William Carman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-rudyard-kipling/
