"Hurt And Virtue" lyrics - CRADLE OF FILTH

Distant vistas
Swathed in the haze of the reddening sunset
Fell to whispers
'Neath the 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 praising this hellraising trough
The sparse and marble clime
Where Virtue bathed, their ravenings made
Her fountains flood with vine

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 love 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
Trough 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 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 nigt '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 on 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, unauthorized
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