CRADLE OF FILTH LYRICS

1. The Fate Of The World On Our Shoulders

[Instrumental]

2. Existential Terror

Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus
Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus
Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus
Pulvis Et Umbra

Meaningless
Is this all there is
A flicker of life in a black forever?

Shine a light on the bowels of Heaven
Dark futures howl in her grip
Frightening new constellations, headlong
Press their scowls on Orion's lip
Our earth is strangled
From within and soon without

Existential terror
Four Horsemen our pall bearers
Riding nightmares of purebred belief
In the coming apocalypse

Existential terror
Furies spit on grave endeavours
The world is a slippery reef
Encircled by beasts of the sea
'Neath an eclipse

Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus
Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus
Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus
Pulvis Et Umbra

The more we know, all the more we quiver
On our knees before prophecies
Just begun or being sung for countless centuries
Psalms carved deep into our psyches
Our earth, newfangled
Abrim with sin and fully undevout

Existential terror
Four Horsemen our pall bearers
Riding nightmares of purebred belief
In the coming apocalypse

Existential terror
Bleak winds blow storm-crow scarers
The world is a slippery reef
Encircled by beasts of the wing
'Neath an eclipse

A gnawing fear of death
Of the great beyond
Of the lessening bells of midnights left
To dwell upon what the hell went wrong

A perverse, reverse Pentecost
Mass cataclysm, all is lost
Accursed music of the spheres
Ascends to score a bitter ending here

Existential terror
Pestilential errors fly
In the face of planetary strife
Existential terror
Four Horsemen our pall bearers
Riding nightmares of purebred belief
In our extermination

Decide
Eyes scour blazing skies
Time to embrace the inevitable
We are all going to fucking die

Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus
Nothing but nothing remains
Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus

Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus
Nothing but nothing remains
Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus
Again

Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus
Nothing but nothing remains
Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus

3. Necromantic Fantasies

Lovecraft the day
Bend it to Wyrd ways
Life wends, a masquerade
Where nothing is forever
Save the grave
And our desire burning

Look about us now, unbowed
The world is furled in tragedy
And outed from the madding crowd
Hurdles bless our destiny

When the moon is full
And the wolves howl in the forest
Would you take my hand
And lead us both on our dark adventure?
Would we share our dreams
Those necromantic fantasies?
So could we ever be
Apart, when our hearts align like thunder?

Do what thou wilt
Never got their guilt
Death purrs with a sombre lilt
Precious hours
As sylph and Filth
Are built on borrowed time

So let us fly
Twin spirits joined as one inside
As countless devils hone damnation
We shall revel in our own salvation
Before we die
Before high judgement comes crashing nigh
Let's seat our fates together
On the throne of paradise

My soul was caricature, rest assured
It hobbled cold and lame
Then across my defenses of frost
You came, eyes full of flame

So when the stars spill out
And the nights are filled with terror
Will you whisper truth
Right us from their human error?
Would we share our dreams
Those necromantic fantasies?
So could we ever be
Apart, when our hearts align like thunder?

Love conquers all, love conquered me
It put the Magdalen on her knees
So breathe the magic in the air
Tragic tastes sit everywhere
As heavens fix their wrathful eye
On man licking the planet dry
Of leavened tears, lets you and
I just spread our wings...

When the moon is full
And the wolves howl in the forest
Would you take my hand
And lead us both on our final voyage?
Would we share our dreams
Those necromantic fantasies?
Really, could we ever be
Apart, when our hearts lie six feet under?

4. Crawling King Chaos

Ravaged are the heavens
Seven angels are deployed
The seals delivered
To return us to the void

And waiting on the cusp of many dusks of man
He watches as the masses seek a fake salvation
As He breeds annihilation

Now death is law
Venom dripping from the mouth of madness
Incites the rites of war

Prepare the heights of Empire for the agonising fall
The beast is rising
Enwreathed in flame
The soundtrack bleeds insanity
His theme, the screaming End Of Days

Come
Crawling King Chaos, come

Sing his name in rapture, wormwood bitter, spat in tongues
Of ancient Pandemonia for the ghosts all shall become
Returning to the churning of primordial seas
The Order Of Disorder restored through tribulation
Through this bred annihilation

The whole world is his church now
A seismic paradigm shift to chaos

Apophis
Reach dark office
Apophis
Seize the Goddess

Apophis
Reach dark office
Apophis
Seize the Goddess

Apophis
Reach dark office
Apophis
Be the prophet's propaganda

The beast is rising
A cancer at the core
Of everything accelerating
To Death's apathetic maw

The beast is rising
Underlit by gore
Stone tablets crack, humanity
Is doomed to looming horror score

Scatter brittle insects, fate is heard
In the necrotic birth
Of the terminus plague
Satan has fallen
Midst dark waters of the Earth

Come
Crawling King Chaos, come

Mountains heave great murmurs
Fires raze the forests black
As billions flee the horsemen
Creation, wounded, staggers back

To expire in the mire, wiped from all of time
It will be eternally that we never existed
By this bred annihilation

Apophis
Reach dark office
Apophis
Seize the Goddess

Apophis
Reach dark office
Apophis
Seize the Goddess

Apophis
Reach dark office
Apophis
Be the prophet's propaganda

The beast has risen
Behind the sun
The least unleashed is Armageddon
For everything and everyone

The beast has risen
Tearing wide the door
For our burning footprint
On a cindered world, sinning no more

A cindered world, sinning no more

5. Here Comes A Candle... (Infernal Lullaby)

[Instrumental]

6. Black Smoke Curling From The Lips Of War

Drunk off the wine of her mass fornication
She sits astride turbulent seas
Her poisoned cunt harbor to deep fascination
Nations in thrall to the Great Harlot Babylon

She is desire
Free, swathed in dark ecstasies
She will not tire
Bathe in her fire, the Great Harlot Babylon

I have loved her stars too deliciously
To be fearful of the consequences

Judgements, hellbent
On vengeful wing
Descend to swell her cemeteries

Her orchids unfurl as bureaucracy moulders
Sweet opiates further the dream
The fate of the world on her silk-caressed shoulders
Scarlet this woman, the Great Harlot Babylon

She breeds acceptance
Of greed and hypocrisy
Decreed is the sentence
Her prophetic downfall
Unheeded by everyone

I have drunk of her fruits too viciously
To turn my face from her desecration

From foreign shores come the claws to rend her
To burn it all, this opulent splendor
And cast her down in naked surrender
Back to the spurn of the fall

The sins of the earth have spread out her vines
Eastern at birth, now she westers the vespertine
Festers and shines there

The scent of her fragrances hung like a noose
Upon Eden's forbidden tree
The Mother Of Exile, beguiling and loose
Tongued like a serpent, the Great Harlot Babylon

She is desire
Free, swathed in grave liberties
She will not tire
Bathe in her fire, the Great Harlot Babylon

Her putrescence blazes, deep mystery Babylon

And though the skies
In tumult, agonise
She still swaggers in the shadow
Of the towers aimed at God

Black smoke curling from the lips of warfare
Black smoke curling from the lips of war

See, false cathedral
She feeds this evil
Regime with the fecal
So flee from her, people

For freed, the primeval
Will bleed her steeples dry in every way
Idolatress, Ishtar, mistress
Shalt suffer a painful, shameful death
Her soul disgorged
And then be left with nothingness

7. Discourse Between A Man And His Soul

I look back on the books of my life I've written so well
Father I fell
Farther I fell
For coveted girls and the sins that follow them
I have loved and laughed enough for half a battalion of foes
But nobody knows of my inner demeanour but thee

Nightmares
Slink in their dark lairs
Thinking of plots where
Everything rings with the sting of depravity
As thou have seen I have not always danced on the edge of the world
I have oft lost my mind
In labyrinths, blind
And broken my bread with the flies

I just don't want to die
Without thee by my side
Sated and beautiful
I will struggle with keys at the gate
Never a saint, far from decency's grace
True to my heart
Bearing off-the-chart latitudes

Father I fell
Farther I fell
A reckless Rakehell with misdeeds that still honour me
I see now that beauty held me mesmerised under a spell
Father I fell
Farther I fell
Down slick mythic wells
Where emptiness swallowed me

I have lived and gasped enough
For more than ten thousand shadows
But nobody knows of my innermost demons but thee

Nightmares
Slink in their dark lairs
Eyes are aflame there
Waiting to sink their despicable teeth into me
As thou have seen I have not always danced on the edge of the world
I have succoured and fought
Like a fucker for naught
But the right to be left to my dreams

Finally soul I am free
Joyously thralled to recalled memories of yore
So before I pass I must see thee if only once more
Oh my beautiful friend
I will love thee until the end is nigh
And in time
I'll find thee in my arms on the vast other side
Father I fell
I look back on the books of my life
I've written so well
Father I fell
Farther I fell, a reckless Rakehell
With misdeeds that still honour me
I see now that beauty held me mesmerised under a spell
Father I fell
Farther I fell, down slick mythic wells
Where emptiness swallowed me

8. The Dying Of The Embers

Bloodstains, not rose petals lie on the path
To the gluttonous bed of the whore
For she, who is Satan, the waiting bloodbath
Is preparing her nation's for war
For war!

Anthropogenic
Dark angels wring
The fabric of life free of tears

Choking black fronds
From the censers they bring
Encircle as Apocalypse nears

Midnight is the phase
Seismic second waves
End of final days near

Sorrowed Holocene
Blackened back to clean
Like Man has never been here

Nothing but burnt
Skies ever learnt
The fate of that terrible game

It is not this stirred circus
Strength that deserts us
Fires that hurt us
But the dying of the embers

That murders all hope for the flame
For the ghost of humanity to rise once again
Unsympathetic judgement descends
Nine billion souls under heel
Storm-clouds ablaze, razors slice through the ends
Of the Earth, with insatiable zeal

Midnight is the phase
Seismic second waves
End of final days near

Sorrowed Holocene
Blackened back to clean
Like Man has never been here

Nothing but burnt skies ever learnt
The fate of that terrible game
It is not this stirred circus
Strength that deserts us
Fires that hurt us, that brings on the pain

Nothing but burnt
Skies ever learnt
The fate of that terrible game

It is not this stirred circus
Strength that deserts us
Fires that hurt us
But the dying of the embers
That murders all hope for the flame

Our lengthening reach went astray
Ignoring the laws of our brittle existence, the universe clawed
And tore it away

Life is a dream
In an endless charade
Armageddon deadens (Armageddon deadens)
(Armageddon deadens, Armageddon deadens)

History warned us but we chose to pray
We murdered all hope for the flame
For the ghost of humanity to rise once again

Nothing but burnt
Skies ever learnt
The fate of that terrible game

It is not this stirred circus
Strength that deserts us
Fires that hurt us, that brings on the pain

Nothing but burnt
Skies ever learnt
The fate of that terrible game

It is not this stirred circus
Strength that deserts us
Fires that hurt us
But the dying of the embers

That murders all hope for the flame

9. Ashen Mortality

[Instrumental]

10. How Many Tears To Nurture A Rose?

Our time together ends
The sadness is over
I tried my best to make amends
But my heart grew cold and black
I have knelt before your altar
Read the missives from your psalters
In many ways, I was bound to falter
You gave me nothing back

Religious fervour got us no further
The Goddess silent to the zealots that serve her
Veneration, masturbation
Icons of deceit built on fluidic foundations

I'd have offered you the world from an elven spire
These thoughts shall not prevail
For in our time, the ships had set sail

Disguise the hurt with wine and fire
How many tears to nurture a rose?
How many thorns to tear us both into pieces?

The night, the night grew chill
And in its arms, I fantasized
And fell into her darksome eyes

I woke upon the sand
The madness was over
I tried my best to understand
But my mind, bewitched, was gone
I had crawled within her garden
Seen the things that would make a soul harden
Saints and sinners all begging her pardon
I had hung upon her cross

The taste of bliss turned to venomous piss
Now the graven angels sing of loss

I'd have offered you the world from an elven spire
These thoughts shall not prevail
For in our time, the ships had set sail

Disguise the hurt with wine and fire
How many tears to nurture a rose?
How many thorns to tear us both into pieces?

Faith bled away from the shore that day
Nothing but the whispers of the vista at play
Advanced, answered my
Lonely prayers, my spent libations
Thunder coming with a pent frustration
You could have been my esteemed salvation
And we'd have had it all
If you'd only stepped from your pedestal

I'd have offered you the world from an elven spire
These thoughts shall not prevail
For in our time, the ships had set sail

Disguise the hurt with wine and fire
How many tears to nurture a rose?
How many thorns to tear us both into pieces?

11. Suffer Our Dominion

The ability to sustain life on earth is shrinking
In perfect unison with rising population
Soon, half of all species will be lost to climate change
And ecological collapse due to human activity
Thus we either reduce our race voluntarily
Or nature will do it for us
And she will be fucking brutal

A grave infection killing its beautiful host
Destroying precious habitats
Acidifying seas, raising the ghost
Exhausting resources
Retaking Eden back

Inhumankind now drives mass extinction
No escape from an enemy of billions
Pity the poor creatures that suffer our dominion

Nowhere left to live unhindered
The Angel of Death slips through the creaking eaves
Everywhere we touch polluted
Greed sits across the table, suited
Welting Mother Gaia like a rash
Bow to our domination
Last belts of nature 'neath the lash
We need to bleed
To devour all creation
Feed the masters
Vast abattoirs existing for our prey
Breeding disaster
Naive consumption
Forefront of the coming plagues

The end descends on all with no distinction
Omnicide, Theriocide the final curtain
Cataclysm close to midnight, that is certain
Inhumankind now drives mass extinction
No escape from an enemy of billions
Pity the poor creatures that suffer our dominion

Suffer our dominion

We are currently consuming natural resources
At almost twice the rate the planet can renew them
Thus to restore the balance, nature will retaliate
But it will be no subtle pruning of our luxuries
It will be a cruel and merciless catastrophe on a global scale
And without doubt
It will be the end of life as we know it

A simple fact, vast errors weigh
Thus Terra acts to curb our play
A coffin for the world handmade to measure
From forests' twisted treasures
Now lost to frost forever
The end has come

Jungles culled, sold on or cindered
The Angel of Death slips through the burning leaves
Everywhere we touch polluted
Trees of wisdom long since rooted

Inhumankind now drives mass extinction
No escape from an enemy of billions
Pity the poor creatures that suffer our dominion

No escape from an enemy of billions
Pity the poor fuckers that suffer our dominion
No escape, no escape, no escape, no escape, no escape, no escape
(So pity the poor creatures that suffer our dominion)

12. Us, Dark, Invincible

Us, dark, invincible
Us, dark, invincible

Seize the night
Before the fevers take flight
Cicadas drown out delight
In this horny cornucopia
The stars are alight
We have desires in sight
Dark immortals, bedight
In the throes of lycanthropia

Drink deep when dusk descends
The moon-kissed air
That succours...

Us, dark, invincible
Us, dark, invincible
We know our sins appall
Us, dark, invincible
Us, dark, invincible
We know our sins appall

We, the children of The Fall
Dripping with gall
The gothic-scarred principle
Our balustrades standing tall
Us, dark, invincible

Freeze the day
Let our nocturnal foray
Keep Aurora at bay
From this candlelit utopia
As orchestras play
Nightmares speak of the way
We're painting over the grey
In a dripping red sinopia
Bursting with flame
Seasoned teeth, never tame
We're first in whispered disdain
Icons for their nyctophobia
We suitor ill winds
Incalculable sins
The face of vanity grins
At our human race ectopia

Drink deep when dusk descends
The moon-kissed air
That succours...

Us, dark, invincible
Us, dark, invincible
We know our sins appall
Us, dark, invincible
Us, dark, invincible
We know our sins appall

We, the children of the fall
Dripping with gall
The gothic-scarred principle
Our balustrades standing tall
Us, dark, invincible
Us, dark, invincible

What fires die
In the hearts of those awry?
And what mad embers arise
In the veins of the insatiable?
What dreams might fly
Through the mist and midnight skies
When our cold souls fantasise
On the warmth of walls now scaleable?

Never
Never will we break the vows
We took when we swore to the dark
Never will the shadows bow
On the house of our ancient caste
Never
Never will their rule renew
For when the Day Of Reckoning is over
I'll bring their severed heads to you

13. Sisters Of The Mist

Witching hourglasses
Bleed the hissing sands of time
As this story, gory, a catharsis
Leads toward the quite sublime
We have such sights to show you

Enslaved from the start
She captured my heart
I recall our lips trembled a whisper apart
And when she died
I cried to darkened orders
Fell fiends of the abyss
(Beware their kiss)
Sisters of the mist

Through split lips of torture
I scream out her name
Clarissa, I miss her
Death's fissure remains
She hangs in the courtyard
Neath a cold, callous moon
Her bruised naked carcass
Displayed for the boon
Of those who desired her
Fiery womb
If tomorrow we burn
Tonight we will seal their doom

Enslaved from the start
She captured my heart
I recall our lips trembled a whisper apart
So when she died
I cried in darkened corners
Fell fiends of the abyss
(Beware their kiss)
Sisters of the mist

As guards drunkenly slept, fog crept from dank woods
Slithering, slathering, beasts understood
That starved, vengeful spirits of similar fates
Had answered the prayers I left at their cemetery gates

From the scarred side of midnight
Monstrosities came
Clarissa, I wished
For hellfire to rain
These vehement women
Lithe Stygian shades
Tore through the murk
Like a forest of razorblades
Fating, castrating
Each soul to be taken
And freed from my cell
On reaching the gallows
Enshadowed, I fell

Witching hourglasses
Bleed the hissing sands within
As the net of retribution passes
Leaving nothing breathing in its skin
A waste of good suffering

The coven dispel with the first rites of dawn
Sated they fade, now benign
I cut down my bride and cry out, forlorn
Cradling her spent body to mine
Then for one rent moment
A miracle spurred from the pain
Death lends her back to my fervent embrace
Three final words as she slips to oblivion

Enslaved from the start
She captured my heart
I recall our lips trembled a whisper apart
And when she died
I cried on darkened shores
Despisal, reprisal for holy fists
(Beware their Mephistory)
Sisters of the mist
Sisters of the mist

Now the sun rises on streets steeped in blood
I stagger her corpse to the lake
The feared Water Wyrds creature up from the mud
To take us to depths far away from the stake

As the cold waves enclose, I shall falter no more
Nothing is ghosting me back to the shore
And though I have knelt at this altar before
Death will unite us, our nights will be glorious
Together, victorious
And legendary, even in hell

14. Unleash The Hellion

I have basked like a phantom in shadow
Haunting gauntest opera eaves
As the cast was aware of nothing more in the air
Than the whisper of snow on the Autumnal breeze

As the ignorant waltzed
The ballad changed it's melody
Shunning the sun for infernal gloom
I felt joy in deep misery
But fate's found me out by the plight of the moon
Blazing a path that laughed at my own ill-ease

Drown despair with molten deeds
Fell the beast before it feeds
Master the sacred
Blast the horns that razed cities
Tell the grating world upon its knees
That I am free

This tethered Hellcat is unleashed
Unwinding, sore
Grinding to the core
This fucking Hellion is unleashed

The feeling is back like a Pharaonic curse
The scent of fresh blood to a ravenous thirst
Lazarus risen, brought back from the dead
Realisation, this seasoning dread
Adrift in the cosmos, naked and rife
We breed without meaning
Gifted with fleeting life

Drown despair with molten deeds
Fell the beast before it feeds
Master the sacred
Blast the horns that razed cities
Tell the grating world upon its knees
That I am free

The gates of the mind splinter open wide
On rusted hinges, must infringes
Senses thrust to override
Explode upon reality, I thought long-lost, I failed to see
The forest for the trees
My fire had fled and died
I now behold a dawn adorned with majesty
To never dare embrace it would be a travesty
A seething Chaotopia, a bedlam time story
For, if this is the end
I want my wretched scars to breathe

Now sinkholes spit me back
The shades retreat like scattered dogs
As the earth is ablaze with the end of days
I watch the palaces burn along with gods

Portals of thought have delivered me
From the brink of a stinking abyss
Wherein the view was of pain and askew
With an apathy born of crisis
Existential, for our place in the spheres
Gleamed meaningless, I must confide
I suffered, a fool at the mercy of fear
For what good was living when dying inside?

Drown despair with molten deeds
Fell the beast before it feeds
Master the sacred
Blast the horns that razed cities
Tell the grating world upon its knees
That I am free

This tethered Hellcat is unleashed
Unwinding, sore
Grinding to the core
This fucking Hellion is upon them







CRADLE OF FILTH LYRICS