Cradle Of Filth 1996 "V Empire Or Dark Faerytales In Phallustein"
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 downtrodden with scorn In the dank, odiferous earth
We embrace like two lovers at death A monument to the trapping of breath As restriction is bled from the veins in 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
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
[March '93]
["Step by step I create odalisques. morbid lovers,] [creatures marked by waiting and hope.] [isolated in a closed, embalmed world, entranced by dreams...] [Madonnas, Empusas and other harem creatured suffering from] [anxiety,] [desertion sorrow, passion and rapture, manifold nostalgia."]
[Soror Ionesco]
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 tempestuos 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 twelwe (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 vrgin-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 abd 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 enemyy in throes...
Whilst drifting forgs 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 olunge 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 Lucifers 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