APOLOGIES TO BROWNING

Begging your pardon, Sir;
I have been sent to apologize
For making free with your poems.
I'd have thought that you,
Being dead and all, might not care
But pride, it seems, outfaces death.
Apologies are not much in my line
Perhaps you can instruct me
Should I get down on one knee
Or will making my face, such as it is,
Reflect a degree of manly contrition
Be enough? Look, here is a twenty --
Enough to buy both you
And Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Double mocha half-caf lattes.
Friends once more? Good -- and if
You chance to see Shelley plain
Give him my best regards;
Tell him I regret most of the things
I used to say about him.