The Persecution Song - Cradle Of Filth

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