Barack Obama and Joe Biden both quoted Irish poets in their speeches at the ceremony honouring Biden with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in Washington DC on Thursday.
President Obama surprised his Vice President with the honour, and in a lengthy speech about his colleague and close friend, he quoted W.B. Yeats.
Obama joked that he had to quote an Irish poet in his speech, but that he could not use a famous Seamus Heaney line as Biden often looks to the Northern Irishman for his own addresses.
"As Yeats put it – because I had to quote an Irish poet, and Seamus Heaney was taken – 'Think where man's glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends'," Obama told the crowd.
The line was taken from the Yeats poem The Municipal Gallery Revisited.
During his own speech, Biden did turn to Heaney quoting a line from his poem From The Republic of Conscience.
"And Seamus Heaney in one of his poems said - when you can find someone who says it better, use it – he said, 'You carried your own burden and very soon, your symptoms of creeping privilege disappeared'," Biden said.
You carried your own burdens and very soon your creeping symptoms of privilege disappeared.
Watch the moment Obama surprised Biden with the honour here:
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Obama recently awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to a number of famous faces including Tom Hanks, Robert DeNiro, Bruce Springsteen and Diana Ross.
Biden's comes with a bonus however, with the Vice President receiving the honour with distinction.
This is an added honour that has only previously been bestowed on three people; Pope John Paul II, President Ronald Reagan and Colin Powell.
Click here for a look back at the hilarious Obama-Biden memes
