CRADLE OF FILTH LYRICS

1. The Cult Of Venus Aversa

I am She
Lilith
Mistress of the dark
Of Sheba
First offender
And succour to demons
Whose sweet seductions and wicked rites
Lead all those too enslaved by the flesh
To trespass against God's holy law
And tonight I come for you

Midnight strikes, the candles sputter
Muttering their recking spells
I snuff their tongues, my heart a-flutter
These words i speak are gates to Hell

Casus belli
In hoc signo vinces
Veritas vos liberabit
Casus belli
In hoc signo vinces
In aeternum, amen

The scent of death is rent
In this ornamental verse
In ventures down the centuries
Tormenting me with secrets so anathema
And now the fires grate
I must relate, to end this curse
I'll break through spires to escape my fate
Am I too late or just perverse?

Midnight strikes, the candles sputter
Muttering their recking spells
I snuff their tongues, my heart a-flutter
These words i speak are gates to Hell

So the blight begins
Near the woodland of a frightened village
Where the rites of unimaginable sin
And the howling on the wind
Chills the blood for fear of spillage

Where nightfall used to be
Blessed with best tranquility
Its no caressed by misadventure

Templars from the crusades
Have birthed a church, more masquerade
In which they worship mass dementia

They came from dust and flame
By the Red Sea on dead shores
fleeing claims of blasphemy

And bestiality
Devils fed them back to us

Knights of holy wars, inviting hordes
Of grim infidelities
In the grip of cryptic lands
And desert sands
They found just cause

and midst their entourage
Under the stars
They Bought relics and parts
Of saints
And evil left to clerics charge

With Muslim plunder they built their sect
To the composite Baphomet
An androgynous sphinx, open, erect
Universal in its closet display

Spawn of Lilith and Samael
First offender and the snake
In thrall like pawns beneath its spell
The templars grew to astute surrender
Sabbatical, fanatical
They Adorned its monstrous bust
Whit a kings ransom of Easter jewels
The embodiment of beast and lust

Many moons the proved the boom
Of immutable and beautiful
Darkness ever-afters

Then one eve when the ancient trees
Outside, drew back, unnerved
The pleas from those impatient teased
Something from the black beyond of nowhere

A stunning woman, summoned
Comming scimitar-curved
Statuesque, but living flesh
Draping nakedness about their pagan saviours

She came Lilith, a perfect myth
The scarlet whore
Skinned in magnificence
In her defense
She only slew a few of them

Born of a sacrifice, a virgins price
For the merging with a Goddess
She prowled the world again
Enslaving men
With the surging of her bodice

Midnight strikes, the candles sputter
Muttering their recking spells
I snuff their tongues, my heart a-flutter
These words i speak are gates to Hell

Casus belli
In hoc signo vinces
Veritas vos liberabit
Casus belli
In hoc signo vinces
In aeternum, amen

2. One Foul Step From The Abyss

The Feast of Fools, 1308
As January slipped into the grip of winter
A leather leash tightened round the throat of fate

Amidst the flock, disease and dementia
Night was blighted more than ever before
With screams of lust and obscene adventure
And scenes of raw debauch

The darkness was aroused with every kiss
And all who fell under its spell
Were one foul step from the abyss

One foul step from the abyss

Sacred village there in All Hallows Fair
Feared the templars and their Queen
For Lilith compared to a royal nightmare
When she steered their tempestuous

Fever-dreams

The beast was loose and beauty party
To the horrors of this sonorous whore
A seducer, Medusa
A frozen Hecate cloned

Stealing seed, here needs were like a cancer
Growing stronger with each whimpering dog
knelt before her, thirteen necromancers
Called from desert sands to this land of opportunity

The darkness was aroused with every kiss
And all who fell under its spell
Were one foul step from the abyss

One foul step from the abyss

love was drugged by a copious vendor
A train of servants for here decadent games
Purring on rugs in fugs of opiate splendour
Vain Lilith spread her wings again

Stars, they gasped and comets in ovation
Lit the towers, their very presence declared
They watch with lust, despair and veneration
For the Goddess scatted naked there

The painted eye of the storm

Plagues of sin, played to win
All hearts and souls in thrall
to her embraced, her fatal whims
Desire meant to conquer all

Until that fateful day, 1308
With a force blessed by the Kings of Hate
Facing winter gray to disintegrate
Once noble halls

The villagers in a belligerent horde
Fraught daughters fanning flames
Rose like pillars for their militant Lord
Thoughts of slaughter haranguing hot veins

They assailed the fort beyond the woods
as the howling broke on the stroke of midnight
Many lost their sanity at what they fought

Amidst those walls, creed of dementia
Annihilated by sheer weight of the surge
Put to the sword, freed from their calenture
The great estate was given straight to the church

Of Lilith, no limb ranked amongst the dead
But that she drank the blood of many men
That dark night it was said

3. The Nun With The Astrail Habit

The world was her cloister, the abbess Duboir
In the convent at All Hallows fair
A pearl in an oyster she shone like a star
Augmenting her sisterhoods prayers
Her singing touched Angels and melted their hearts
her choirs inspired the search
For the lost holy grail, the Benedict arts
And the best of the Catholic Church

But if one thing
One precious little thing
Would darken this facade
There would be such consequences

Like the night Sister Victoria
Stepped in from the freezing cold
No candles would light at Evening Mass

The days passed by without a sigh
But dusk came thick with dread
Intangible, the air was full

Of wanderlust and approaching bloodshed

In truth, the Abbess with her pious whims
Enjoyed the new girl's pain
Proof to the rest tat the briars of sin
Entangled all the world in Satan's name

Victoria Varco, once heiress
To a proud noble estate
Fell pregnant by her recklessness
Who then fell foul to a violent fate
Such was here cime in expedient times
And the shame of besmirching her name
Her child was burnt, she was dragged to these walls
For a life in obedient chains

But not one thing
One precious little thing
Would darken this facade

Like the night Sister Victoria
Woke screaming in her room
She spent a week spiralling from heaven

And as the seasons wheezed and pained
Her dream grew more perverse
For no good reasons she would to find
An alluring woman naked save for jewels and verse

When here eyelids close, on a moonlit shore
This intoxicating beauty would appear
The sweetest symphony composed
Those abating lips rose
Tho whisper dirty secrets in her ear

Clandestine secrets

A dream within a dream
She finds hereself this nymph
Abreast a desert dune
And below the crescent moon
Atop a darksome stranger

Ah, the spurting of his seed inside here
Triggers paradise
She rides the beast until the heavens trembled

Forcing eclipse, her lover licks her blood
That drips upon the sand
And almost out of hand
Coarse plots assemble

For somewhere in the convent walls
A templar treasure rests
Forgotten to the vestibules
Like pleasures of the flesh

So, in return for nightly runs
Past tongues and wisdom's hiss
She promised to assist the hunt
for an ancient golden chain amiss

4. Retreat Of The Sacred Heart

She slept in ecstasy
In hands that fanned her wildest fantasies
Freed from Christ's frigid regime
And rigid nails...

She was first in church
To lick her lips and self-debased
Each waking second felt like heaven
In the scarlet One's embrace

And at last, clear memories, aghast
Relinquished their control
All things held dear to the wretched past
Coalesced within her soul

Madness crept into her sight
Though her sinful hair
Spoke of nothing to the contrary
Once dulled eyes leaped alive with life
Her piece of broken mirror
Barely recognised

The worm was turning

For her sat grinning Victoria
Who, no three weeks ago
Was flogged red to euphoria
For her dour love of God
And the ardour of his crows

Cold cloisters kept the dead apart
At the Retreat of the Sacred Heart

She stepped in ecstasy
Neath skies that plied her wildest fantasies
Freed into love's reacquainted dream
And sudden gales...

Night grew sultry late September
A man came from the village
Through the woods
To help with harvest
She was burning like the fields
All her vows lay unfulfilled
His name was Isaac, silent, blessed
A mute whose tongue impressed her lately

But now red skies darken
The roonks lament
Windswept maelstroms harken
The approach of Lilith's
Nightmare kingdom

The woman in her astral dreams
Became more vivid, livid, obscene
Scatted on the throne of oayx blasphemies
Emanating raw desire
And the surging urge to scream

Darkness crept into her face
She stood erect
And spook of riches and their whereabouts
Finding in Isaac the need to place
A hidden Templer necklace
Lest the month run out

For now stormed the vainglorious
In her palace of mass delight
Her power dawned victorious
Victoria the key, her mind unfastened
By flights of morbid fancy
Psychomancy, rites of ancient wrong
Sweet seductions, peaked cruptions
Spiking through impatient song

Cold cloister kept the dead apart
At The Retreat of the Sacred Heart

The gate to hell was forced apart
At The Retreat of the Sacred Heart

5. The Persecution Song

At the very start
There were whispers in the dark
And for all the world to see
There was witchcraft at its heart
And on the autumn air
The scent of bonfires everywhere
And a fell wind stirred the leaves...

The persecution song

Telltale signs of possession
Little Miss Demeanour in the demons bed
Gasps she just could not suppress
After lights-out midst the dead
And a past on which sin cast its darts of wickedness

Time was running faster for disaster
Strange nights were burning
In the furnace of her dreams
A name was uttered, Lilith
Mistress, playmate, master
Such sights were stolen in the throes of ecstasy

And in the thick of all
In the Black Goddess's thrall
With the wood unseen for trees
Victoria stood tall
Promiscuous in step
The Devil breathing down her neck
As jealous zealots stitched apiece...

The persecution song

Telltale signs of possession
Fickle Miss Demeanour hissed and disappeared
To her Sisters of the cloth
She now reeked of Astaroth
Again the curse had surfaced
Sneaking back the pagan years

Weaving webs of great revealing
Hidden in the convent
An evil libido abided, undone
Breathing, deceiving
Feasting on her deviant feelings
She'd clung to her crucifix
Once her torturers begun

Her screams came quick
The miserichord
Den to vice and screw
That had reddened many tongues
Wrung symphonies
Of suffering from her

Many moons hardened pure hearts
Those plagued by her black arts
Their rooms secreting phantom orgies
Vile rites and rifled graves

Mere hours, now towered
Above this bent and beaten flower
Her naked body privy to
The Abbess and her ways

Victoria fought
No guilt was wrought
Just a torrid retort of blasphemies
Nails and crosses vomited forth
From this pretty little whore now arched like Hell

Arched like Hell

At the very start
There were whispers in the dark
And for all the world to see
There was witchcraft at its heart
But then the end grew nigh
A dirge inferno filled the sky
In its customary key...

The persecution song

Telltale signs of obsession
No wailing banshee would dishonour their name
Nuns dragged her to the blasted oak
Storm-clouds threatened holy smoke
They hanged her there like Judas
With the Hellcat in her reined

Time was running faster for disaster
Exorcism, torture, gallows
Now a shallow grave
A name was stuttered, Isaac
Tongue-tied, simple, bastard
They made him dig the pit
Mindless of what it claimed

6. Deceiving Eyes

On the night all mirrors fell silent
And the clocks struck accord with the rain
A storm swept in with such violence
The dead rose to complain
The stars were ill-crossed as the weather
Lost in its bitumen cloak
The Angels were warring, slick with endeavour
Falling like tears through the thickening smoke

Blood redeems, heaven torn asunder
A flood of souls scream on the rolling thunder

Blood redeems, heaven torn asunder

She stirs from dreams barely three feet under

"Victoria, I come to claim my prize
Stealing from the convent neath the wrath of seething skies
For though you greased the palm of Satan
With those moonlit silver thighs
I knew the beast took second place
When I looked into your eyes

Your deceiving eyes
Filled with lies
And missed good byes
And serpents hissing revelations

Your deceiving eyes
They tell enough
Of how I fell in love
With the goddess creeping deep inside you"

And with the tumult up above him roaring
Isaac sought her shallow grave
As lightning bolted through the grim down-pouring rain
He struck the hallowed earth again

Having torn at the soil like a man insane
Не threw his fists at the poisonous cosmos
And from that pit of shame
He bore the coffin from her sorry lot
Neath trees whose eaves were knotted with rot
Through ornate chapel doors, unlocked
To splinter her sarcophagus
And gaze upon her face

Victoria...

"Victoria, I come to claim my prize
Stealing from the convent neath the wrath of seething skies
For though you greased the palm of Satan
With those moonlit silver thighs
Making mockery of rosaries
His needs will never rival mine

I recall a summer's day
The sunlight bathed your penitential scars
As I sat and washed the blood away

Now your body stays
And the coldness of your lips
Eclipse
Like the first true kiss of winter"

Pining for the dead
On the stone floor spread
She was shining through her winding shroud
A moon amid the mad, this son of Adam had
A gift for the pretty young nun
A necklace wrought of twining snakes
Two gold illicit tongues
He laid it at her throat
Where the rope had wrung
He was burning from the furnace
Of his roused desire

He wrested with temptation
To be or unfulfilled
She was undressed for ovation
Her sumptuous form, the storm revealed

And with his driven lust exploding
Her lashes brushed his cheeks
They flickered with life, her limbs enfolding
Purring, licking wicked teeth

"Victoria, I come to claim my prize
Stealing from the convent neath the wrath of seething skies
For though you greased the palm of Satan
With those moonlit silver thighs
You have left him just for me
I see it in deceiving eyes

Those deceiving eyes
Filled with lies
And missed good byes
And serpents hissing revelations

Those deceiving eyes
They tell enough
Of how I fell in love
With the goddess re-arisen in you"

7. Lilith Immaculate

Church bells resounded like judgement day
As they were making love
In the rainswept graveyard
She fucked him hard, silhouetted by flame
A monsoon Tigress set upon prey

Fall for the love of me
Crawl for the love of me
Drool for the love of my virulent sway
I grow more master the faster the days

Lilith Immaculate

This delectable reaper
Her eyes were profound
Drawing him in deeper
Until he was drowned
Hurled on the shore
Of the world underground...

Lilith Immaculate

Mortal kind, a morbid wine
For this dark moon goddess
And freed to stretch her claws
This beautiful whore
Would be brutally honest

Tortuous one, taboos undone
A glittering star on a sea of myriad waves
And a thickening mist, a seductress
Leading lovesick hearts astray

Lilith

In the throes of orgasm, she bucked and he broke
At the height of the storm, the chaos they'd smote
Burning behind her in arabesque smoke
Framed a vision transformed as she sucked from his throat

Victoria smiled, her now golden eyes
Possessed a regal bearing
Of omnipotent power
From wet lips to her smouldering thighs
Her beauty perfected and her will agonised

Fall for the love of me
Crawl for the love of me
Drool for the love of my virulent sway
I grow more the master the faster the days

Lilith Immaculate

With dread single purpose
Her mind told him stay
She strode through the fire
Desire aflame
She murdered the nuns
In such horrible ways...

Lilith Immaculate

"That night we lay entwined on hay
Inside a soldier's barn
Her panting breath an opiate
As in her bolder grasp
I caught the scent of desert sands
The Holy lands, the fall of reason
But only when I smelt the blood
Did I fear her colder hand"

"I am darkness, I am sin
The Queen of lust invited in
Reborn at last to cast my
Fecund shadow on this world,
You shall worship me, enslaved
For many lovers shall I crave
And in return, I'll gladly pave
Your psycho path with pearls

For I have been grating
And waiting so long to find
The most perfect hostess close to me
Whose thin-ice troubled mind
Was like a cracked, black ornate mirror
To slip right through in time
When at last I wore Harmonia's necklace
The cursed twin serpents mine"

Tortuous one, debauchery won
The attention of Emperors, Princes and Tsars
For the toll of her kiss, no soul could dismiss
The advance of her throne from afar

This English rose with traits of those
Who graced the harems of the East
Adorned with thorns, she raised the horns
And scarlet hems to wasted priests

Fall for the love of me
Crawl for the love of me
Drool for the love of my virulent sway
I grow more master the faster the days

Lilith Immaculate

This delectable reaper
Her eyes were profound
They drew him in deeper
Until he was drowned
Hurled on the shore
Of the world underground...

Lilith Immaculate

Fall for the love of me
Crawl for the love of me
Drool for the love of my virulent sway
I grow more master the faster the days

Lilith Immaculate

The flutes and sweet wine
Of her voice anodyne
Her power was growing
Every hour malign
The truth, Lilith's kingdom
Drew closer with time

8. The Spawn Of Love And War

Poets racking absinthed brains
Could never fully paint these nights
No martyr parting from his pain
Could utter words so erudite
As those she now divulged to me
In throes of passions grip
Indulging latent fantasies
That ran forked tongues along the lip

Of fate's pudenda
The twisted snake's agenda
Now the world would bend
To her deadly legacy

Life's graveyard was waiting, such dizzying flight
From the convent at All Hallows Fair
Without contemplating, we fled through the night
Too blood-drunk and cunt-sated to care

The Goddess had spoken
And woken desire
It crackled in the air around us
A psychic force shimmering like fire

And on her breasts. that old necklace
The one I snuck from the fucked Abbess
Whose dirty little secret, other than me
Now shone with bold intensity

Vast the power it possessed
The darkness Brought to living flesh

This treasure was ancient, taken by force
From an elite caste of priests in Delphi
The Templars were patient, they stayed out the course
Then fleeced their Greek hosts in their sleep

That necklace traversed
Vile murders and miles worse
But what was a curse
To this perverse demoness?

Legend swore it was a gift of malice
For the maiden Harmonia
The illegitimate spawn of love arid war
Jealousy made it gleam for her
For with it clasped, her looking glass
Was ever beautiful and young
But disaster choked her royal caste
And every throat on which it hung
There madness, death and horror clung

Immortalised in mortal guise
She was a sight for blighted eyes
A plague to gladly plagiarise
And spread like red excited kisses

She was more than me
More than words
Could fulfil in the parlance of the angels
She cast a spell on every cell
In my nobody
She gave me back my tongue
That she might run it on herself

She was Lilith. she was light
I was but a parasite
Beckoned to temptation
In her velvet overtones
Through frozen antics, dressed in white
She led me into paradise
Neath comets in ovation
Like the Queen of winter, throned...

Pleasures archetypal
Then much rarer agonies
I was a sworn disciple
Of her whims and dark decrees

In Europe's hair
Her spies were everywhere
A sylph amongst the filthy rich and debonair
Her greater plan
All chaos and the all of man
For as she fed dark appetites
She bred her children there

The spawn of love and war

Presiding over Hellfire clubs
Arch-masons and Agharta

The spawn of love and war

She rode the beast. her legs apart
A blazing pyre starter

Life's playground elated, such dizzying sights
And sensations ignited her grin
As slaves celebrated her Satanic rites
We climbed up to heaven in sin

She came to me
As she will come to You
Intoxicating in her seduction
Her siren sway. devastating voodoo

Persistent, resistance is useless, fool
To this Goddess, in lust she's cruel

Beyond any measure, her pleasures will found
A perverted Eden on sacred ground

vast the power I caressed
The darkness brought to vivid flesh
And in it she now rules a cowered universe

9. Harlot On A Pedestal

Where does the madness end?
How far down do the rungs expire
In smoke and burning heat?
In depravity and sin?

In her shocking retinue
I saw the worst
Desire run amok amongst you
And in her boudoir too
The endless nights embedded
In her beautiful cocoon
Turning black and blue and jaded

Kneelin at her feet
My heart atrophied at her ravishing form
The ultimate test
Her cult obsessed
With this body of the Goddess reborn

When she first laid me to rest
I saw such sights of wickedness
From this harlot on a pedestal
This scarlet Woman scorned

I glimpsed desertion, the bluster of shame
The tribes of the moon. their lustre improved
A morbid aversion to the limpid domain
Of Eden and Adam her dark temper moved

I witnessed reverie then
Perverse resurgence, souls on fire
Blood and seed spilt for centuries
For this imperious bitch

In her shocking retinue
I saw the worst
Desire run amok amongst you
A gnawer of taboo
Dread appetites were threaded
Right throughout the mortal zoo
Her immortality now hungered

I remember, in Thebes
Enthroned with cat-skinned girls
Her long dark hair braided with pearls

A red gown split revealed her thighs
As full lips rose to feline eyes
Egyptian black outlined each lid
It's clear who owned the pyramid

Temptress Lilith
Her beauty stirred me more than words
Could ever paint, her bible hurt

Tempered Lilith
Hissing in the dark
Pissing on my heart
I was missing every part of Victoria

Victoria

I found them hypnotic, the years of display
Of court life and parties, political bite
Narcotic, erotic, her bleary soirees
Left daylight a dream in the scheme of the night

The scheme of the night

But I grew uneasy, she wanted the earth
For now she was spinning her sins
Breeding fell children and hiding her worth
Before the new orders disorder begins

Feeding from the weak
Savaged on their feet by her ravaging lust
Evening-dressed
This young Countess
Led lovers astray under cover of dusk

When she took them to her breast
They passed last rites, deliciousness
Swept into their every pore
This matriarch of darkness bored

Harlot on a pedestal
The night orchestral
Harlot on a pedestal
Never vestal...

10. Forgive Me Father (I Have Sinned)

Forgive me Father, I have sinned
Darkness put her painted claws in me again
Her vision drowns like service wine
Whispered kisses so divine
I was blessed but now I've come undone

Storm clouds roll out overhead
Above their master
End of all flesh, end of all days
Love predicts disaster
In her precious ways

I was burned, a sacerdotal soul
By the Demon Queen of my dreams
Infatuation turned to total control
Her rose was sweet
But her thorns were barbarous

"Love me
And worship me
I'll lavish you and ravish you
Fulfil all wishes and fetishes too

Many never want to see
Many never want to know
The truth behind their fantasies
Their deepest needs
Let alone be shown them"

Forgive me Father, I have sinned
Darkness put her painted claws in me again
Her vision drowns like service wine
Whispered kisses so divine
I was blessed but now I've come undone

Nothing left to do but run

Sodom rolls out modern death
On casters ever faster
End of all Flesh, End of all Days
The stars predict disaster
In her bastard ways

"Love me
And worship me
I'll nurture you and hurt you too
Fulfil all wishes for my sad Aladdin"

She comes to me
Like a sandstorm in an hourglass
A whirlwind of desire
I am hypnotised
To think beyond the pale
Beyond heart-stopping eyes
And sopping thighs
I'm won't to fail

A wicked spell cast over me
Addicted to her utterly
Despite the horrors that gestate
Beneath the beautiful

"I'll grant you life beyond your ken
The envy of all other men
Whatever vice will make you spend
Eternity with me"

Satan's concubine
She makes her crime scenes shine from heaven

Forgive me Father, I have sinned
Darkness put her painted claws in me again
Her vision drowns like service wine
Whispered kisses so divine
I was blessed but now I've come undone

11. Beyond Eleventh Hour

"All mirrors lead to my palace
My exotic pleasure temple
Wherein my court is both gracious and insatiable
Pure and obscene
For where pumps the true heart of life
There too seeps corruption
And from this my new Eden of nightshades, black
henbane, sphinxes,
opium and roses weaned on tears and blood
Will rise up like lust
And the shadow of my dark consort shalt extend
Himself across the face of the world...

...And Hell will come with Him"

Part of the garden, her dark Eden
Fed blood by poisoned fronds
My heart hardened in her wet season
Treading mud in her slough of despond
But only now
A path lies straight before me
The maze is ploughed half through with hate
Andpher crop is dripping red

Beyond eleventh hour

Her beauty and brute power
Grows stronger by the day
And with each rose that she deflowers
The longer her throes of madness stay

In her grip on shredded sheets
Once our fingertips had dug and clutched
She whispered dreadful things to me

She wanted war with God
The underdog baring sharpened teeth
With her armies raised from suffering
To ascend on jet black wings

She'd break off holy limbs
On the racks of her witch hunt
And crush the church beneath her heel
The Pope in homage to her cunt

A dark horse forcing nightmares
To wring submissives dry
A vampire madam batterfang
With vicious streaks a mile wide

Beyond eleventh hour

Her kiss has turned dismissive
Her glance holds slight contempt
Instead those eyes burn on the prize
Of fates she really likes to tempt

In her grip on shredded sheets
Gasping from conquered peaks of passion
She whispered dreadful things to me

She wanted war with God
The underdog baring sharpened teeth
With her armies raised from suffering
To ascend on jet black wings

She'd tear down mighty spires
Then rear them up anew
Orders forged to her desires
The eleventh hour nearly through

Lilith, the abyss, the slithering mists
That cause all souls to stray
How to resist those seductive gifts
On the shore of her unholy ways?

She calls my name so softly
From deep banks of scented fog
I almost lose myself before it starts
But my spirit keeps its silence
As I drift across the lake
A glimpse of harem secrets
Now her velvet curtain parts

She is glaring like the moon

The wind dies down. eavesdropping
As I bow before her throne
And she descends to greet me
Like the royal bitch to which shes grown

"Come closer, what have you to say?
Black cat got your tongue?

"I am not your slave
Nor are you my saviour"

"But Isaac, I'm the only one..."

I hold those cold deceiving eyes
Her once hypnotic gaze
And pledge eternal love. then walk away
Thunder seethes behind me
Death adjusts her favourite mask
Another lover smothered by her sanguinary darkness

Clasped in the garden, here you heard
This story blustered through
I asked her pardon, swore my word
I'd score her sweetmeats just like you

For only now
The truth lies prone before me
I couldn't leave her even if she stormed
The heavens as were promised

Beyond eleventh hour

Lilith, the abyss. the slithering mists
Will come for you this eve
Lustrous the cusp of her lingering tryst
Before those fatal kisses bleed

Beyond eleventh hour

She will make of you a plaything
Scant amusement for her bed
And when naked flesh forgets to sing
She'll take your fucking soul instead

Midnight strikes, the candles sputter
Muttering their reeking spells
I snuff their tongues, my heart a-flutter
These words I speak are gates to Hell

12. Beast Of Extermination

[Special Fan Edition track]

"Kill a man and you are a murderer.
Kill millions of men and you are a conqueror.
Kill everyone and you are a God."
[Jean Rostard (1955)]

Born of the best of enemies
Beyond the pearly constellations
Wherein heaven has no embassy
And hope no surly grip on reason

Yahweh: frankincense
Satan; gold and murder

He is sly, bejewelled with sylph
Slick limbs spread wide to guide you through the filth
And rust
Crawl to him fuelled by lust

He's the horned one in the pentagram
A waste of chaos by the gram
Dark eyes for trouble, double damned
Despair
The storm upon lake Lacrymose
Restless. never comatose
The thorn upon the single rose
We share...

Germination

His a renegade a Capella now obeyed
A shitstorm without warning
The pleasuit King In Yellow on parade
Son of the thunderous morning

Yahweh: frankincense
Satan: gold and murder

He is high. inured with vice
The tower-cree er on our edelweiss
Career
A foreign power cut of utter fear

Taught curiosity, he s atrocity. banned
The taste of chaos by the dram
A tortured course like slaughtered lamb
Best rare
The curse that haunts this thirsting tomb
Disturbed, becomes the worst of doom
Rehearsing all his worth for soon
He's there...

Extermination

He is hatred. greed and war
He is everything we ought abhor
Were it not for the fateful truth
Be sure
We suffer him all the more

And lo! his tyrant's eye
Is fixed upon our rich and vibrant sky
Now hear the wind
Herald desolation

As on that eve when angels clad
In nothing but their whispered virtues
Slipped into the valley
Of the dirty serpentine

Hes the horned one in the pentagram
A waste of chaos by the gram
Dark eyes for trouble, double damned
Despair
The storm upon lake Lacrymose
Restless, never comatose
The thorn u on the single rose
we share...

Desperation

Disdainful. he self-deprecates
The mirror's jagged stare
And it's painful how we subjugate
The grinning face reflected in there

Yahweh: frankincense
Satan; gold and murder

13. Truth And Agony

[Special Fan Edition track]

Mother's milk has soured
My life's a bolted door
And from it runs a trail of vagrant gore
My wounds are open flowers
Fragrant gifts for my encore
Bouquets of praise for bleeding, towered
On the sacrificial floor

I summoned and you came
To the peel of twisted bells
To the gelid whisper of my name

I blanched, erotic danger
Had me whirling like a star
To the dark advance of strangers

And then I heard you laugh
A throat of broken glass
Leather stitched to weeping skin
A coat of death and suppuration

Be my truth and agony

An architect for my total destruction
My erector, my dissector
My flesh will be wet for your best seduction

Be my truth and agony
inventive and deranged
Loves proof is in, its plain to see
The fluids we've exchanged

Part of these soul killers
The Gestapohood of scars
Carved an ornate invitation on my heart
The scent of French vanilla
With the stench of abattoirs
Past tense of present laythings
On those stained red lips ajar

I summoned and you came
From the churning guts of Hell
With your Christmas hiss of chains

Down the endless centuries
Your torture bed of lust
A shrine for us to redesign
And sign in blood and rust

Be my truth and agony
An architect for my total destruction
My erector, my dissector
My flesh caressed by your best corruption

Be my truth and agony
inventive and deranged
Loves roof is in, its meant to be
My cells are rearranged

I suffered and you came
To the splintering of bones
Winning pinnacles for my pain

Raped and racked and mutilated
I Raised from dregs again
Autopsy-turvy, back elated
In brazen arms that sacked my veins

Skinnatra, take me to the stars
Thrust me through to paradise
Endorphins breaking fast

Creature from the black abyss
Teacher. sadomasochist
Your tortured soul has led me
To this altered state of bliss

14. Adest Rosa Secreta Eros

[Special Fan Edition Track]

My number is 11, as all their numbers who are of us.
My colour is black to the blind, but the blue & gold are seen of the seeing.
Also I have a secret glory for them that love me.
But to love me is better than all things:
if under the night stars in the desert thou presently burnest mine incense before me,
invoking me with a pure heart, and the Serpent flame therein,
thou shalt come a little to lie in my bosom.

For one kiss wilt thou then be willing to give all;
but whoso gives one particle of dust shall lose all in that hour.

Ye shall wear rich jewels; ye shall exceed the nations of the earth in spendour & pride;
but always in the love of me, and so ye shall come to my joy.
I love you! I yearn to you! Pale or purple, veiled or voluptuous,
I who am all pleasure and purple, and drunkenness of the innermost sense, desire you.
Put on the wings, and arouse the coiled splendour within you: come unto me!

I am the Snake that giveth Knowledge & Delight and bright glory, and stir the hearts of men with drunkenness.
To worship me take wine and strange drugs whereof I will tell my prophet, & be drunk thereof! They shall not harm ye at all. It is a lie, this folly against self.
The exposure of innocence is a lie.

Be strong, o man! lust, enjoy all things of sense and rapture: fear not that any God shall deny thee for this.

Let the Scarlet Woman beware! If pity and compassion and tenderness visit her heart;
if she leave my work to toy with old sweetnesses; then shall my vengeance be known.
I will slay me her child: I will alienate her heart: I will cast her out from men: as a shrinking and despised harlot shall she crawl through dusk wet streets, and die cold and an-hungered.

But let her raise herself in pride! Let her follow me in my way! Let her work the work of wickedness! Let her kill her heart! Let her be loud and adulterous! Let her be covered with jewels, and rich garments, and let her be shameless before all men!

Then will I lift her to pinnacles of power: then will I breed from her a child mightier

15. Mistress From The Sucking Pit

[Special Fan Edition track]

Oh dear God
It is midnight in the labyrinth

The night is set to taint the painted halls
Moonlight is our cue
The candelabra flicker at your passing gall
I swear they're dancing just for you
The dead leaves rustle on the manor lawns
As a light breeze whispers through
The call of wolves. the owls lament
Our screams shall soon soar skyward too

Mistress from the sucking pit

All the world crawls lovesick at her feet
The stars are passing observations
Her voice is music, her legs go on
Shes got full orchestration
And been known to use it
But trepidation is a far slicker song

Amongst dull suitors
She is bright and razor sharp
A tree of woe uprooter
A viper still at heart

Shes alkaline and far acidic
As sweet as clementines
This mistress from the sucking pit

All the world crawls lovesick at her feet
The stars are passing observations
Her voice is music, her legs go on
Shes got full orchestration
And been known to use it
But trepidation is a far slicker song

Mistress from the sucking pit

Embossed by her postulant gaze
Like Medusa on a plinth
I am lost in her embrace
Oh dear God
It is midnight in the labyrinth

A peacock fan of sinful eyes
Swim wide across the room
This night, espied, your thin disguise
Does wonders for the sundered gloom
For all lit up the shades retreat
To dark Italian pews
And corners where great vases stand
Abrim with thoughts of naked dais with you

Mistress from the sucking pit

All the world crawls lovesick at her feet
The stars are passing observations
Her needs are dire, her rites are wrong
She burns with exultation
Like a fiery vampire
For desperation is a far slicker song

Amongst dull suitors
She's bright and razor sharp
A tree of woe uprooter
A viper still at heart

She's alkaline and far acidic
Fluidic, serpentine
This mistress from the sucking pit

The waiters pass in gilded frames
With glasses sparkling too
The ball tonight rows magical
Like the finest Venice threw
And at it's heart a mythic queen
Her skin of purest hue
Whose beauty is unquestionable
But whose duties are askew
For beneath the airs and divine graces
A slim tornado whirls
On the precipice of her poisonous kiss
The devil dwells deep inside this girl

Embossed by her postulant gaze
Like Medusa on a plinth
I am lost in her embrace
Oh dear God
It is midnight in the labyrinth

Mistress from the sucking pit

The wine has sat and breathed it's last
In blood red ruby where
I find you by the roaring hearth
A blaze of golden hair
Cascading down an angel's face
To pool about the breasts
That man minds have wondered on
but only I caress
And then I'm yours. the velvet crown
Of Venus in my hands
Fists rip hard the eiderdown
Desire firebrands
Every mountain, every route
My wanton tongue must take
To taste that once forbidden fruit
Before your bloodlust starts to...

16. Behind The Jagged Mountains

[Special Fan Edition track]

I have come from the freezing seas
From the warmth of foreign coals
Through the dismal fog of insecurities
To a cloud-enshrouded noble goal

The world has cast me from its laughter
Thrown to the wolves, to the dread thereafter

So now I forge a journey fraught
Through these bitter wastes of snow
Over ice and gorge to an Eden sought
Far from the human races afterglow

This sightless climb is treacherous to weather
As the cold bites deep, old heartstrings sever

Behind the jagged mountains
Beyond the frozen North
At the back of Boreas. The zealous wind
There crest celestial fountains
Crystal waters soaring forth
In the realm of our sacred Angelus kin

Neither muse nor music flees
This garden of delights
Everywhere the soothing hands of nature please
In this state of pure Euphoria

Paradise lies at the heart of darkness
And one must pay for this deep catharsis

Now the storm-clouds retch
A vision fleets before my eyes
Wherein minarets and spires touch
Phantasmagoric skies
And meadows stretch to woodlands
Of sweet nymph and fireflies

Death is in the breeze
And his mind will paralyse

My mind is in the clutch
Of something too long fantasised

Behind the jagged mountains
Beyond the frozen peaks
At the back of Boreas, the zealous wind
The Gods of love are counting
Down the nights until we meet
In the realm of oursacred Angelus kin

Now the mirage blears
And the howling gusts renew their fury
The gleam of moonlit towers
Fades to utter fear

The mountains rear in anger
At the righteousness I lack
And in their monstrous grasp I know
Dear God
They will never let me back...

Free of enemies, no death, disease
The doves of peace, in flight
Carouse upon the ever-Summer breeze
In this land of Hyperborea

Behind the jagged mountains
Beyond their icy stares
At the back of Boreas, the zealous wind
My soul is now surmounting
Past the grasp of last despairs
To the realm of our sacred Angelus kin

Behind the jagged mountains
Beyond the frozen North

17. The Cult Of Venus Aversa (Demo)

[Special Fan Edition track]

18. The Nun With The Astral Habit (Demo)

[Special Fan Edition track]

19. Deceiving Eyes (Demo)

[Special Fan Edition track]







CRADLE OF FILTH LYRICS