UNCROWNED

I am not other than men are, you say?

But faulty and failing? And your love can lend

No glory of illusion to o'erlay

The lack, and make me seem one in whom blend

Nobilities wherein your heart may lose

All that it feels of flaw in me, or rues?

Can it so be? Did ever woman love

Whose faith wreathed not about the brow she chose

Aureolas illumining him above

All that another thinks he is, or knows?

I ask it bravely, for the way is long,

And, haloless, should I not lead you wrong?