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CRADLE OF FILTH LYRICS
"Damnation and a Day" (2003)
1. A Bruise Upon the Silent Moon
2. The Promise of Fever
3. Hurt and Virtue
4. An Enemy Led the Tempest
5. Damned in Any Language (A Plague on Words)
6. Better to Reign in Hell
7. Serpent Tongue
8. Carrion
9. The Mordant Liquor of Tears
10. Presents from the Poison-Hearted
11. Doberman Pharaoh
12. Babalon A.D. (So Glad for the Madness)
13. A Scarlet Witch Lit the Season
14. Mannequin
15. Thank God for the Suffering
16. The Smoke of Her Burning
17. End of Daze
1. A Bruise Upon the Silent Moon
"And the Earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep..."
2. The Promise of Fever
In the beginning
Rimmed with wind and storm
A great black wrath of infinite math
Spat snarling into form
And there was Heaven
Lit up with precious stones
Each one could fall but for the rule
Of Faith and love and stronger thrones
And therein rose vast wonders
Affections to be seen
Fathered from the plundered
Reflections of a dream
Fogging into nightmare
For Him whose place was set
With wayward stars that absent, marred
All creation with their theft
In the beginning
Bewinged and ringed with dawn
This favoured Avatar, enthralled
Swansongs from those that thronged
this shore
With Gabriel and Michael
He shone with fierce intent
For loyalty, their joy to see
Him spur the hymns to heaven (sent)
From sculptured lips of seraphim
Whom Fate then cruelly rent
(With sleight-fingered strains of
harmony)
Each note to grim portent
As grinning nimbus gathered
Over spires arabesque
For Him that blazed with holy praise
That for a jealous God was meant
Shining Feriluce
Lustrous scourge of fallen spirits
Basked in glory, flew
To lakes in sacred altitudes
Sweet haunting music swathed the
breeze
With curling tongues that lapped His
lead
As through thick mountain mist
He wandered cursed
(with thoughts adrift)
Until at last, past grasping trees
He paused to draught forbidden streams
That whispered siren promises
To drown His thirst
(for sports amiss)
These waters held secrets
Like raped Russian dolls
Wherein evil and good
Tore His soul for control
And drunk with the verse of desire�s
first words
The weight of the universe
Slunk in rehearsed
Horror in numbers too great to discern
The rotting of worlds to the
conqueror worm
And love a rare orchid so fragile in
bloom
Espied gasping breath under dark-
sheeted moons
Shining Feriluce
Reflected in a jaded mirror
Climbing from the noose
Of time in divine servitude
And thus a strange new melody
Of will and wanton fantasies
Whetted by the veiled, seen
Danced from His ashen lips
In red dawn scores, the silver scream
Of truth and Her deleted scenes
Was taken up as far, it seemed
As God His words eclipsed
(Those waters hid visions
Like butchers in war
Perverting the course
Of life�s blood evermore�.)
In the beginning
Skinned well with gibbous tones
Of countenance and ignorance
In equal measures sewn
A marbled arc of Angels
Sworn to the morningstar
Shared His pride and deep inside
Felt chill shadows sweep their cards
3. Hurt and Virtue
Distant vistas
Swathed in the haze
Of the reddening sunset
Fell to whispers
�Neath stars that marred
descending skies
From the cusp of midnight mountains
Wending as a mist
Rebels truced with Feriluce
(In truth, few could resist)
Came pressing his hellraising through
The sparse and marble clime
Where Virtue bathed, their ravings made
Her fountains flood with wine
Lifted with the gift
Of their dark seductive songs
She drifted from the path
She was surely set upon
Courting chaos
Prized in the sight
Of the covering angel
Taught in ways of
Smothering another lover
Other than God
Worshipped in each other�s arms
Like spider eidolons
The moon conducted like a charm
Those strange arrangements on
And this is how they came to be
Dragged before the throne
Through tongues that hung whilst
theirs were run
On soft white throats and punctured
moans
Though fated now than later
By his tutor that had been
He baited the Creator
With the future he had seen
Of Michael, psyched with jealousies
A reich right by his side
And worming Man about to be
The apple of His eye
His children lost to free will
And the cost of beaten hearts
Like the night �twixt vice and Virtue
When Her kiss became a scar
Seraph enemies
Why has my lord forsaken my
judgement
Am I not free as He to indulge my
darkest fantasies?
From embittered lips
These words were slavered
Split with the whips
Of their witch hunt gathered
He sought Her gaze
Midst drowning crowds that howled
in rage
Blasphemer!
Blasphemer!
Though She was gone
Not lyriced to the song of their
spirited throng
But ghosted back where She
belonged�
A grace embracing Michael
In a lace of tears that bleared Her pride
He swallowed
Blood followed
Through with spit for all things
divine
Through with spit for all things so
fucking blind
His seal He tore
And to the floor
He threw his tie to Heaven
Signifying holy war
And watchful of this sign
A thousand flames, unauthorised
Left celestial posts
To coalesce and, unified
Return their fallen leader
As he turned one final time
And threw a glance
Like a downward lance
That stung like guilt in every mind
4. An Enemy Led the Tempest
As pride precedes a downfall
So He took His place before the
firewall
Of dissonant choirs whose faith in one
Was embraced in this wraith whose
fate was hung
Between forgiveness and the damage
done
An electric scent over drear decay
Lent a violent surge to their
serenades
Through white glades as His winged
parade
Bent to silhouette and to sharpen dull
Within vast skies unversed in starkness
His might grew
And blew light hues to grey�
And worse, a third of stars to darkness
Then thunder seethed
And wreathed in thickening night
A line was drawn midst wrong and
right
And across the throats of thieves
As love fell choked, the tempest broke
From heaven�s farthest shore
Descending to eclipse all hope
Repentance might stay holy war
He would not heel nor fake a bow
Murmur curses to the wind
Enraged, he raved in Balrog howls
Upon a storm firstborn of sin
Incensed anew, rebellions tore
Like frenzied beasts of prey
Through temple doors�
Thrown east before the midnight
masses
And where once bliss reigned so serene
In sweeter glades
Now veins ran openly�
Like eyes that shied from kindred ashes
When suddenly
There shone a hideous light
And a voice like three insanities
Soared up in thistled speech�
�Thou hast bred hate where there
dwelt none
And for this grave mistake
How thou art fallen Morning Sun
The proud will be abased�
He would not heel nor fake a bow
Murmur curses to the wind
And lo, the wrath of god swept
down�
�Thou art no more an angel filled
With light, but a leech to be abhorred
And thou shalt suffer My burning
will��
Quoth this raven, �Nevermore�
Nevermore
And with these words like heavy stone
Cast against that gilded throne
With many legions still in tow
He turned his wings to flee
His eyes a picture of distaste
Drawn to tears and in their place
The dawn of time and fates to face
Through all eternity�
I wept for him a deep red river
That ran like blood through scarred
ravines
To sluice away the guilt that slithered
Like a serpent tongue to Eve
For once as I, in heaven climbed
Too high for truth to truly see
My sunken mind, drunken and blind
Saw the lie; That fool was Me�
Alone and cold, face to the crack
Beyond dark gates with no way back
His crown of gold faded to black
Like a bruise upon the heart that
lingers
With thrill-kill culture shock wave
lengths
Of rope to hang high
Ten commandments by�
Snaked about his upraised fingers
5. Damned in Any Language (A Plague on Words)
"And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon, and the Dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not. Neither was their place found anymore in Heaven. And the Great Dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil and Satan which deceiveth the whole world, he was cast out into the Earth and his angels were cast out with him."
[Revelations 12:7-9]
6. Better to Reign in Hell
Heart in hand passed to the clasp of
pain
In a dark lowland that set bad blood
in veins
Burning, like penal fires roused to stain
The jagged-toothed skyline braced
with crosses
The golden dawn
Lay lost to mist where
Emboldened thorns
Made their bed with toppled stones
He closed His eyes
Sunken to dream there
Of crow-black skies
And a great white empty throne
Horror stalked the bilious fogs
That balked His vision
He licked the spittle from the cheeks
of the wry
And drifted back to when His stung
it�s target
The sneer of Michael on a glorious
high
Of angel dust and Virtue by His side
Drowning in the past
That downfall seemed like yesterday
Though blurred moons passed
As enemies in high places laughed
Moved to mirrors cracked with heavy
lines
He rose snowblind, though shifting
sands of time
Erased the trace and taste of bitter
wines
The grapes of wrath grew fat on the
vine
She came to Him
A little whip of tantrums
Thrashed on velvet skins
That lined Her wishbone Henge
Her name was Sin
A warming spurt of mantras
Splashed on occult tongues
That whispered sweet revenge
For the shame of their crawl from
grace
Cold and hollow as the grave
And for rape and a ruinous scourge
Spared for souls that had shared
God�s worship
For now their throats coated notes
with dirge
That poured from parapets to the pits
below
Drowning in the past
A wretched scream like yesterday
Died at last
With the rising of the revenant dark
All sharpened claws and blunt discharge
�I shall bow no more to the dogs of
the Lord
Tearing at my carcass heart
I shall fall to my knees only at the
keyholes
Of Virtue slipping into bondage
masks�
Freewill made me better to reign in
Hell�
And with new wings
Unfurled and spoken
He took to things
That would desecrate the world
The seductions of both woman and man
For a bastard masterplan
Drowning out the past
Fool Fates unwound cruel yesterdays
Beneath the stars
That staggered from the blast
7. Serpent Tongue
Part I
So adept was unspoken Man
At dusting ledgers of the seraphim
That Lilith swept across a broken land
In a whirl of lust to pleasure Him
This bland Adam, a reaper of the sun
In bone dry season, for Eve was busy
sucking thumbs
Pricked in rosy gardens as He
spattered into shells
And ran with morning fauna; His
mastiffs and gazelle
Breathless as the wind
Adam, prowled, fell foul to Sin
But not before She spread Her grin
Across His silent lips
At crack of day, though what was
shame?
The raptor�s nest wherein they lay
Bore witness to Her soft parade
Of fingers come to grips
His undivine attention won
She deftly spun
From �neath His thrusts to writhe above
In ecstasy
Pendulous she swung
As if Her limbs imbibed His tongue
To spill, as with His rod
The secret name of God
But no seed passed those fruitful lips
For fearing Her who gasped, He slit
Her throat from ear to where She fled
With tail and blood between Her
legsss�
Part II
So very kept was the virgin hand
That brushed the treasures of Utopia
And how greed swept across the
desert sands
In late August just to measure Her
This hallowed Eve, a creature of the moon
A simple dish born with a silver spoon
Giddy sniffing orchids that opened
after dusk
Incubus and Prudence, two such soon
to touch Her
Restless as the skies
Temptation, bloomed, found room to
rise
And snatching breaths between Her
thighs
He crawled to Eve�
At dead of night, the sticky clime
Smelt perfect to this serpentine
This shining Angel
Palled in mysteries�
Her undivine attention won
He deftly spun
A web of intrigue for the one
Great sacred tree
Bejewelled and lit
As if a thousand shades did flit
About boughs of forbidden lore
Hidden for the want of more
And when seeds passed those fruitful
lips
And Mankind basked in vast eclipse
A Devil shot of thin disguise
Surmised to better paradise
8. Carrion
Lurking in the shade
Of dark and fragrant trees
Shirking from the rage
That tore the heavens free
A vagrant Angel
Hid with span to see
The gardens swell with terrors
To banish Man and Eve
Another fall from grace
Whiplashed from the gates
Naked and insane
Full-blooded, breasted
Nerve ends tested
To behests of pain
A sombre lot to gain
As the storm slid in
Borne by fingered winds
The upper ether thinned
And therein sat abomination
Satan seated there
Savouring the reek of desolation
Their dank despair
Moved His speech to leech the air
�Behold the golden door
To paradise is lost
So praise Me as you praised your Lord
And I shall thaw this gnawing frost�
Another fall from grace
Whiplashed from the gates
Naked and insane
And destined for a spiteful Fate
Wherein evil sought the shamed
As pawns in greater stakes
Across this cosmic game
To win the hand
Of darkness and
Set it in its rightful place
At the throat of the human race
With claws engorged and poised to rake
With that the pact was sealed
And as creation reeled
Bewitched oration filled
The hearts of all
Who came to crawl
Upon these earthen fields
A sombre lot to till
A wracked black acid song
Spat from the massive throng
Of Seraph knelt along
The deep red welt to domination
9. The Mordant Liquor of Tears
10. Presents from the Poison-Hearted
Reigning at the feast of Phantasia
Heightened pleasures were
endeavoured to bow
Before My coronation and vocal
aspirations
To rule this fool creation fallen
�neath me now
I knew deep eyes
Of a distant Christ
Were scarred from afar under starry
lustre
Sighting my recitals on the rites of vice
Perverting Virtue
Enslaving grace
Behind the glittering mask of pride
Saving face finding thorns to pierce
His side
Desire, the fire
Spread hell throughout my soul
And higher the wire
The more I sought control
Straining from the leash in exultation
Head to the wind to breathe with
ravenous lungs
The global scent of fornication
A writhe of many vipers deciphering
tongues
I whispered schemes to dreamers then
To pursue an Eden
That screamed of me supreme again
As my world bloomed
So too the moon
Through Adam to Seth, Enos,
Cainan
Mahalaleel and Jared blew
Perverting virtue
Enslaving grace
Behind the slippery guise of lies
Saving face making waves to drown
their faith
Messiahs, Pariahs
Aeons reversed the two
Thus higher, their spires
The more cursed grew their roots
And suffering�
I swept cruel seas
On the galley of the shadow of death
A fist in the cunt of the spread horizon
A kiss for the sun risen red once
dined on
The coast of Menses
Discharged from celestial wombs
A first degree murder of ravens
Followed in fugue through the crack
of doom
The Goat of Mendes
I set regime
In the galley of the shadow of death�
Angels in raiments
As pure as coal
Taking their payments
In tortured mortal souls
A bold direction
The abyss edge
But on cold reflection
One they warmed to nonetheless
As they preyed the paths of the
righteous
Through the myth of thistled
orchard floors
Bearing gifts of plenitude, for
The apples of the Lord were rotten to
the core
Temptation, My ambassador
Attila, Herod, Pharisees and Nero
All begged of Me for more
Down dark steps of history
I waged a war with a Heaven
I could not see�
Beyond My wildest fantasies
Throwing sixes over deadly sin
I traded those who played to win
Skin for precious skin�
And that that wormed within
Staining the reams of revelation
Etching ever-afters in accursed verse
The limpid rags of resurrection
From papal parapets were to dirt
dispersed
Desire, the flyers
Spread Hell throughout their souls
And higher the fire
The more I held control
11. Doberman Pharaoh
To and fro, through freeze and thaws
From zenith to nadir
The universal tug of war
Saw lines drawn in the sand appear
Divisions for a promised land
And Hell for those that dwelt
Beneath a Pharaoh�s granite hand
Where death wed something else
Millennia swam passed
Since the covened Ark
Ran aground on Ararat�
But anew, tempered shadows grew
Out of Midian, strewing fear
Over verdant lawns, the resurgent storms
Led a desert son to sear
From the palace orchard I espied�
(Where swooning trees and
moonbeams vied
For the painted eye of the royal bride
Whose gliding curves were deified)
�beyond Her grace where love
would die
Wretched destiny arrive
Back and forth the prophet came
Riddled with a tongue of plagues
That would render mighty Egypt lame
If the rage of God stayed unassuaged�
I listened with a heavy heart
But unyielded to the threats
This Hebrew in a jackal�s mask
Would dredge into effect
Thenceforth the Nile reddened
As if Set stretched His hand
To beset the damned
And bruised with flies
The skies grew leadened
But these miracles, feared
Were all but reared
By nature, whose law alone
Stood that revered
Thus hysteria passed, but still the mark
Of Yahveh burned on in the dark
One final time, on the steps to the
shrine
Of Thoth, I twined with fate
�Let my people go,�
�Still my word is no�
�Then Death shall be the deciding
plague�
Since the crimes divine I left behind
I�d warred with every tribe that plied
In holy vestment, but with time
Bored sore of clawing what was mine
I laid my bones and made my throne
With a view to paradise
Thenceforth the heavens deafened
As if great beasts
Were unleashed to feast on man
And with carrion span
Michael was weaponed
To descend with scorn
A dark reform
Through Pi-Ramses
Skinning mine and Her firstborn
Thus suspiria passed each sacred mark
Of Yahveh, bleeding in the dark
With nauseous dawn, a cry, forlorn
Unified from plazas deep
The prophet�s curse
Far worse had worked
To wrest the war in me from sleep
Drowned in night, a downward light
Bathed the snaking exodus
Through the wilderness
As the Aeons crept
Impressed with fresh bloodlust
12. Babalon A.D. (So Glad for the Madness)
I bled on a pivotal stretch
Like a clockwork Christ
Bears sore stigmata, bored
And as I threw Job, I drove
Myself to a martyred wretch
To see if I drew pity
Or pretty litanies from the Lord
So the plot sickened
With the coming of days
Ill millennia thickened
With the claret I sprayed
And though they saw red
I left a dirty white stain
A splintered knot in the grain
On Eden�s marital aid
So glad for the madness
I walked the walls naked to the moon
In Sodom and Babylon
And through rich whores and corridors
Of the Vatican
I led a sordid Borgia on
I read the Urilia text
So that mortals wormed
As livebait for the dead
And as I broke hope, I choked
Another Pope with manna peel
Dictating to DeSade
In the dark entrails of the Bastille
And as He wrote, I smote
A royal blow to the heads of France
And in the sheen of guillotines
I saw others, fallen, dance
I was an incurable
Necromantic old fool
A phagadaena that crawled
Drooling over the past
A rabid wolf in a shawl
A razor�s edge to the rule
That the stars overall
Were never destined to last
So glad for the madness
I furnaced dreams, a poet, foe of sleep
Turning sermons with the smell
On Witchfinder fingers
Where bad memories lingered
Burning, as when Dante
Was freed to map Hell
I sired schemes and the means
To catch sight of the seams
And the vagaries inbetween�
And midst the lips and the curls
Of this cunt of a world
In glimpses I would see
A nymph with eyes for me
Eyes of fire that set all life aflame
Lights that surpassed art
In sight, that no intense device of pain
Could prise their secrets from my
heart
I knew not Her name
Though her kiss was the same
Without a whisper of shame
As either Virtue or Sin�s
And pressed to Her curve
I felt my destiny swerve
From damnation reserved
To a permanent grin�
So glad for the madness
13. A Scarlet Witch Lit the Season
14. Mannequin
Led to other worlds
By the girls She curled within
I took their skins to see Her
Be my mannequin
Be my mannequin
I cannot remember
How it was that we first met
Curve of moon and haunted shore
The stars were not those heaven sent
Did we come together
At masked palatial Balls
In silks and flesh and leather
Or did we come at all?
I dreamt a midnight castle
The eerie song of wolves
And eyes that danced with fire
As they have forever more
Our rites of sin
Have long fathered a hymn
To burden Him
Whom by slip of after-whim
At genesis
Dressed Her like the wind
In Autumn gowns
That pinned Her down
To be my mannequin
Be my mannequin
Always poised on winter
But never would She break
My lovecraft and black witch heart
That pounded in Her wake
We kissed on distant balconies
A law unto Her own
Thirteenth dark commandment
Of figures pressed to stone
Turning cream with fantasies
That God alone would know
We graced the vomitorium
With the sweet excess of Rome
Flagrant in the past
Our names were deeply carved
On the tree of life in long dead
languages
Led to other worlds
By the girls She curled within
I took their skins to see Her
Be my mannequin
Be my mannequin
I tongued the nuns at Louviers
But not one word possessed
Her divine right, an archetype
For mortal Goddesses�
15. Thank God for the Suffering
I, I still recall, the first fullmoon of
May
�Neath whose rays we lay together
And those bright nights on glassy
waves
When we would glide lightly away
From the grain
For wicked flights of pleasure
Those visions fade
Like ghosts to life�s parade
Though incisions once made Her so
vivid
A scarlet whore
With both heels in the door
Of a heaven severed from me, insipid
And midst the writhe of parapets
Where angels sigh, lonely she sits
Upon the lip
Only a slip from whence I beg Her
That I would wish
Her kiss a chrysalis
To break to make my fluttered heart
amiss
And in those frozen moments won
From grief that creeps to wreathe the
sun
In drapes inwove with deathshed wing
I thank God for the suffering
Love would have conquered all
But for the Rapture
That ancient plan for my defeat
Denied Faith skies that would have
set Her free
It seems again dreams wend to capture
Once dancing in a spotlit waltz
Through a shadowed dimension
Given to the rivers that bedizened
Her eyes
The world drifted by in lost momentum
With no divine intervention
Regardless that the author
Of sin was me and I
Lay chaste of hate in Faith�s embrace
As Mortals warred with more besides
They warred with life itself
And in those frozen moments won
From grief that creeps to wreathe the
sun
In drapes inwove with deathshed wing
I thank God for the suffering
And I thank God for the suffering
As still I burn
For Her return
I would make my peace with everything
I, I still recall, the first fullmoon of
May
Consigned to flames like secret letters
And midst the writhe of parapets
Where angels sigh, lonely she sits
Upon the lip
Only a slip from whence I beg Her
That I would wish
Her kiss a chrysalis
To break to make my fluttered heart
amiss
And in those frozen moments won
From grief that creeps to wreathe the
sun
In drapes inwove with deathshed wing
I thank God for the suffering
Love would have conquered all
Were we not parted
Her splintered loss rekindles rage
The winter frost dwindles across my
stage
Lit up once more to score finales started
Love would have conquered all
Love would have conquered�
Hate
16. The Smoke of Her Burning
Earth and sea cower from my screams
As I climb into the skies
Atop sins towered heaven-high for me
From whence I see no reason why
I should not smite with vengeance
And hurl thieves down from paradise
For storms before were as nothing
more
Than a breeze next to this night
I am Methuselah of the Tribulation
The Moonchild come to harm
A riot of stars shaken from their
stations
The choking smoke of Jerusalem
burning
Six vices become wrath
And though half-blind with ravening
Like Phineus now I see
The end declared from the beginning
Love won through my defeat
But now I fear I will never peer
On Her radiance again
I shall glimpse instead, the slurried red
Of faces pressed to bloodstained panes
Betrayed and played by God
Who alone but He
Scpaegraced and goated me?
Now I wish to piss on His parade
Angels, clawed, with burnished wings
Still loyal, kiss the seal
Bent on knees and harrowing
Promise overkill
Know that you shall die like whores
And the cries of your writhings shall
rise
To pleased their Lord�
So before the sword
Side with me in slaughter
I am Methuselah of the Tribulation
The Moonchild come to harm
The spoken horns of desolation
Drink the pouring of my fury
Those darkened waters spur
The brink of war as judge and jury
And rapist executioner
Our time is short, the horsemen ride
A foul-breathed chora howls, besides
Damnation and a day has passed
This divine right to genocide
Weld the gates to heaven shut
The abyss leers in hissing ruts
Unhilt the black grimoire of death
Inscribe all names that God has left
I lived the dream of nymph and men
But now the nightmares come again
Now the nightmares come again�
17. End of Daze
"And the Earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep"
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