The Vision and the Voice

THE VISION AND THE VOICE is Peace. There is no sense in my words or in my thoughts. “Faces half-formed arose.” This is the meaning of that passage; they are attempts to interpret Chaos, but Chaos is Peace. Cosmos is the War of the Rose and the Cross. That was “a half-formed face” that I said then. All images are useless. Blackness, blackness intolerable, before the beginning of the light. This is the first verse of Genesis. Holy art thou, Chaos, Chaos, Eternity, all contradictions in terms! Oh, blue! blue! blue! whose reflection in the Abyss is called the Great One of the Night of Time; between ye vibrat- eth the Lord of the Forces of Matter. O Nox, Nox, qui celas infamiam infandi nefandi, Deo solo sit laus qui dedit signum non scribendum. Laus virgini cuius stuprum tradit salutem. O Night, that givest suck from thy paps to sorcery, and theft, and rape, and gluttony, and murder, and tyranny, and to the nameless Horror, cover us, cover us, cover us from the Rod of Destiny; for Cosmos must come, and the balance be set up where there was no need of balance, because there was no injustice, but only truth. But when the balances are equal, scale matched with scale, then will Chaos return. Yea, as in a looking-glass, so in thy mind, that is backed with the false metal of lying, is every symbol read averse. Lo! everything wherein thou hast trusted must confound thee, and that thou didst flee from was thy saviour. So there- fore didst thou shriek in the Black Sabbath when thou didst kiss the hairy buttocks of the goat, when the gnarled god tore thee asunder, when the icy cataract of death swept thee away. Shriek, therefore, shriek aloud; mingle the roar of the 139