“You say, as I have often given tongue
In praise of what another's said or sung,
'Twere politic to do the like by these;
But was there ever a dog that praised his fleas?”

— W.B. Yeats

To A Poet, Who Would Have Me Praise Certain Bad Poets, Imitators of His and Mine http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1724/
The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)

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W.B. Yeats 255

Irish poet and playwright 1865–1939

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Context: What occasion had you to praise me? praise is often hurtful to those on whom it is bestowed. A secret vanity springs up in the heart, blinds us, and conceals from us wounds that are ill cured. A seducer flatters us, and at the same time, aims at our destruction. A sincere friend disguises nothing from us, and from passing a light hand over the wound, makes us feel it the more intensely, by applying remedies. Why do you not deal after this manner with me? Will you be esteemed a base dangerous flatterer; or, if you chance to see any thing commendable in me, have you no fear that vanity, which is so natural to all women, should quite efface it? but let us not judge of virtue by outward appearances, for then the reprobates as well as the elect may lay claim to it. An artful impostor may, by his address gain more admiration than the true zeal of a saint.

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“Those illustrious men, who, like torches, have consumed themselves, in order to enlighten others, have often lived unrewarded, and died unlamented. But the tongues of aftertimes have done them justice in one sense, but injustice in another. They have honoured them with their praise, but they have disgraced them with their pity. They pity them forsooth, because they missed of present praise, and temporal emolument; things great indeed to the little, but little to the great.”

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“Who will speak like that? In our generation there have not been friends like Rajini and I are. He could have just said a few words of praise and gone away – and then there was no need to say.”

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“You say, as I have often given tongueIn praise of what another's said or sung,'Twere politic to do the like by these;But was there ever a dog that praised his fleas?”

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W.B. Yeats 255

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“You say, as I have often given tongue
In praise of what another's said or sung,
'Twere politic to do the like by these;
But was there ever a dog that praised his fleas?”