CRADLE OF FILTH LYRICS

1. Ebony Dressed For Sunset

"The Life of all Flesh Is The Blood" - Leviticus 17:14

"Those who Trespass against us, Beware the Shadows of Dusk"

Unshadow thyselves children
The reign in flesh begins again...

V empire
Funereal majesty awake
Cneajna wreathed in snake
Draconis talons rake...

So haunted is my silent heart
Dreaming only of the moon
When velvet darkness falls tonight
The thirst crescends anew...

Only for you

Inspired to mortal nightmare
Ebony dressed for sunset
In the dulcet whispers of the damned...

2. The Forest Whispers My Name

Black candles dance to an overture
But I am drawn past their flickering lure
To the breathing forest that surrounds the room
Where the vigilant trees push out of the womb

I sip the blood-red wine
My thoughts weigh heavy with the burden of time
From knowledge drunk from the fountain of life
From Chaos born out of love and the scythe
The forest beckons with her nocturnal call
To pull me close amid the baying of wolves
Where the bindings of Christ are down-trodden with scorn
In the dark, odiferous earth

We embrace like two lovers at death
A monument to the trapping of breath
As restriction is bled from the veins of my neck
To drop roses on my marbled breast
I lust for the wind and the flurry of leaves
And the perfume of flesh on the murderous breeze
To learn from the dark and the voices between

This is my will...

The forest whispers my name...again and again

"When the moon is full
We shall assemble to adore
The potent spirit of your Queen,
My mother great Diana.
She who fain would learn all sorcery
Yet has not won its deepest secrets,
Them my mother will
Teach her, in truth
All things as yet unknown"

I walk the path
To the land of the Dark Immortals
Where the hungry ones will carry my soul
As the wild hunt careers through the boughs

Come to me, my Pale Enchantress
In the moon of the woods we kiss

Artemis be near me
In the arms of the ancient oak
Where daylight hangs by a lunar noose
And the horned, hidden one is re-invoked

The principle of Evil
Evolution has been recalled
Beneath the spread of a Magickal Aeon
I stand enthralled
...In the whispering forest

3. Queen Of Winter, Throned

Even a man who is pure in the heart
And speaks in prayer by night
May become a wolf when the wolf's bane blooms
And the winter moon is bright"

Listen to them
The children of the night
What sweet music they make

Iniquitous
I share Carmilla's mask
A gaunt mephitic voyeur
On the black side of the glass
Peering through the mirror
Deep dark and ominous
Consorting themes, demons I weave
Subservience from thee to lost

I am Corinthian light
A snake in flowers by night
The last temptation of christ
Evil in mortal...

Disguise the guilt
Sharp-eyed, impassive whore
Burn the asafoetida
and rank petriachor
Lure me panthered Faustia
With cunt and veiled womb
To prowl thy inner sanctum walls
In Tirgoviste to resume
Control

Seduction, my obsessive art
A pantheon of tragedies inscribed upon the stars
Like thistled ruin, garbed around thy heart
Bacchanal Cinderella, desirious midnight passed
Leaving thee as sacrifice asleep within my arms
'Midst dreams od robed redemption versed in sexual aftermath
When we ebb as tides together, carnal souls entwined
And orgasms expire, come puppet wires and the blind
(Purge)
Fires work in me
A lithe supremacy
I tear asunder heaven as I would all enemies
Impaler Lord
Flesh upon the sword
My lower lusts are sated, the greater herald war

I am thirst, spearheaded hunger
Sacrament and pain
Nails raked in savagery
When the cruel Countessa came

Exalt!
The Queen of death-white winter enthroned
Evil resplendent, in dusk red seething skies
Foam-flecked nightmares drag a moon
Of Draconian design

A love that never dies
Nefarious silhouettes to rise

When stars fall pale
And to drown back in Her eyes
Is to madden ghosts within
To unhinge a thousand sins
From Death's dark vale

"Blessed be these spells of winter
Unto us that wait with patience in
This secret garden
To storm our way into another
As yes undone"

(Surge)

Desert claims Eden
And Hyperborean
Visions of Utopia are driven from the sun
Iconoclast
Before thee angels clasped
In nakedness their ochre flesh
Shall yield to thy advance

She is all to me
Mysterious, alive
The howling in the deep woods
When cold festal stars aligned

A lurid moon looms; phosphorent, evil
Yesod vested in despotic upheaval
Silvering wolves that scarlet forest snow
Forgotten ones ebter as above, so below

The trees groan aghast as ghostly pallored clouds are rent
When the drunken earth heaves, sweep aside seas to ascend
From Sheol's dank haunted wilderness
Thy seal upon Nuit's starry vault to incense the sleepers,
dead

Queen of Winter, throned
The murderess lurked in vulgar caresses
Vestal masturbation
(Purity) Overthrown

Darkness
In raven feathered dress
Sides with Death at chess
Their pawns are many and the enemy
Powerless
When the miscreants fell dead
She took to conjuring spells in the cusp of the night
And the bestial floor shook with terrible life
I rise before thee Queen
To feed our lusts on the blood of the weak
To rule heaven and worlds crawling beneath
Satanic Tyranny

[December '94]

4. Nocturnal Supremacy

Weak midnight promises of love
Were wept upon Her grave
And shunned by stars above
In mortal life lurks my dismay
An Angel stole my heart
and Death took Her away

She sleeps beyond the grace of god
A dreaming beauty
If wishes could only fray that bond
The dead would sing for me...

Twelth moon arose with ghostly voice
A poet's serenade
Her name a whisper 'pon my lips
And lo, Rorasa came

Fear me not my grieving King
Funereal in breath
The secrets of the dark I know
And thus, we shall cheat Death"

My promises wrought though despondence that night
Have delivered me gifts from the grave
Rorasa enshadowed and eternal life
Never a Devil so vain
The Angel is fallen, for I thought her lost
And no heaven would silence the pain
Teach me these secrets, the sensual frost
Desire for warm blood again

Princess lay down thy florid cheek
In drunken splendour
Tonight rare regal fate has cast
The wolves among the sheep

Dark nature clasp my soul
Around Her throat mine arms enfold
To sleep, perchance to dream
And then...
To dusk and flesh ascend

The Sun descends, magenta spirits fill the skies
and wreak erotic maladies where sex and Death abide
From writhing tides where gothick siren weave their song to
shore
Through the ashes of the battlefields where ravens and angels
war
As phantoms we have fled the basilisk of day
To rise as phoenix taloned, nightly taking prey

We rule like the red and risen moon upon the sea
The stars of judgement silent, for we share joyous
Eternity
Damnation
Salvation
Stigmata plague

The wine of Bacchus flows
Listen to the thunder rage

Deceivers dragged before their cross
I am He that vanquished Death
And bore the sting of loss
What vulgar christ will unprise my grasp?
His temple, ruined, burns
And sweet Rorasa laughs

I am enamoured and imparadised
To catch the fires dancing profanely in her eyes
"I will crush them all
If this holds thy delight"
Rather dead forever than to lose her
Nymph-lascivious Aphrodite

[June '94]

5. She Mourns A Lengthening Shadow

Hasten to the bridal bed -
Underneath the grave 'tis spread:
In darkness may our love be hid,
Oblivion be our coverlid -
We may rest, and nione forbid.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

6. The Rape And Ruin Of Angels (Hosannas In Extremis)

Hosannas in Extremis
Invading tempestuous skies
When Inanna rose, bringing angels repose
And Narcissus' date as their prize
Blinded by Diana's mirror
Wherein coffined truth struggles, forlorn
And covetous stars out their eyes to deceive
The horrors performed on Her shores
As jewelled Ishtar, in darker Aeons
Trespassed Ereshkigal's grasp
Her ravening twin, wreathed in whispers and wind
Now inspires Catharsis to dance
Through the weave of white vaults
Where the shadows revolt
At the incest of spiritual love
Castrata choirs, bereft of such lusts
Spatter virginal breasts with their blood

The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve
(Thirst-ridden) Wolves serenade a moon
Who seems no mistress of Herself
And heavens pour forth vast casualties
Thy host given up for me
Thou which wert once and then ceased to be
Art now ensconced to chapters
Of a lengthening tragedy

Whilst we scream free

Deep forests impale the sinister mist
Their sorcery taught to the clouds
Who muster like mountains, a fountainous wish
To vex the sweet dead from silk odious shrouds

Storm-woken sisters of Judas unfurl
As Psyche to Sapphic lament
Wrapt in thy tresses and taloned caresses
Whisper me secrets beheld beyond Death

"Desires
I was loath to lose
To the virgin-bloodied priests
Whose lord fantasied on Magdalene
And sought to savour Her as a beast

Her aching sex
A rose undone
As mine in tears and spasms wrung"

Ebon Nemesis, slain Jericho's stone
has built thee a marbled stair
By candlelight to Eden and Serpentine throne
Where ravens rape the tenanting angels there

Hurry, else Death may spy us here
And quicken the pulse of dawn
Embering flames writhe to life again
The starry brow threshed with poisonous thorn

Huntress, draw back the silvered bow
Thy dogs set upon the manger
The enemy in throes...

Whilst drifting fogs devour
All Hallows witching hour
On this long, dark seance for the soul

Through malevolent Scylla, Charybdis graves
Our conquesting spirits pour forth, unassuaged
Occultnesses watch us and Seraph, afraid
Like fireflies lounge to Her maw, midst crashing black waves

"Remember with pride what thou art
Lest we forget in awe of our terrible past"

When Dark royalties drank of despair
Idols hewed down 'neath a desert god's stare
In thrall to revenges sworn there
What dreams could we father, when farther we fell
To nightmare?..

"Well versed in misery
We have lain naked in darkest ravines
Now the sun has set in slumber, We delight
Like serpents in arousal
Coiled to strike at the light"

Now abyssed Lucifer's master the earth
Uncloister jaded harlots once served
Enthralled by cruel raptures, rehearsed
Kiss slumbered beauty and weapon our thousand year curse

The laughter of Khaos
Gatekeepers flee the onslaught

A World enslaved to flame
Bondage in Phallustine
Pleasure temples for my bride
Nubian grace swiftly seize
Thieves blood-divine
Empires thrive on sacrifice

[May '95]







CRADLE OF FILTH LYRICS