[A Female Will]

(Jerusalem, f. 34, ll. 25–35.)

WHAT may Man be? who can tell? But what may Woman be,

To have power over Man from Cradle of corruptible Grave?

There is a Throne in every Man: it is the Throne of God.

This, Woman has claim’d as her own; and Man is no more:

Albion is the Tabernacle of Vala and her Temple,

And not the Tabernacle and Temple of the Most High.

O Albion! why wilt thou create a Female Will,

To hide the most evident God in a hidden covert, even

In the shadows of a Woman and a secluded Holy Place,

That we may pry after him as after a stolen treasure,

Hidden among the Dead and murèd up from the paths of Life?