For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.

In these lines, the speaker registers a sudden return of awe: the “he” is perceived not merely as a person but as a figure of latent sovereignty. The simile of a “king in exile” suggests dignity that persists despite dispossession, while “uncrowned in the underworld” evokes a mythic descent—an Orpheus/Persephone-like sojourn among the dead, or a period of social, spiritual, or erotic abasement. The final turn, “Now due to be crowned again,” frames the moment as a restoration: recognition, power, or wholeness is about to be reclaimed. The passage thus dramatizes Lawrence’s recurring theme of buried vitality returning from repression into renewed authority.