"Retreat Of The Sacred Heart" lyrics - CRADLE OF FILTH

She slept in ecstasy
In hands that fanned her wildest fantasies
Freed from Christ's frigid regime
And rigid nails

She was first in church
To lick her lips and self-debased
Each waking second felt like heaven
In the scarlet One's embrace

And at last, clear memories, aghast
Relinquished their control
All things held dear to the wretched past
Coalesced within her soul

Madness crept into her sight
Though her sinful gains
Spoke of nothing to the contrary
Once dulled eyes leaped alive with life
Her piece of broken mirror
Barely recognised

The worm was turning

For here sat grinning Victoria
Who, no three weeks ago
Was flogged red to euphoria
For her dour love of God
And the ardour of his crows

Cold cloisters kept the dead apart
At the Retreat of the Sacred Heart

She stepped in ecstasy
Neath skies that plied her wildest fantasies
Freed into love's reacquainted dream
And sudden gales

Night grew sultry late September
A man came from the village
Through the woods
To help with harvest
She was burning like the fields
All her vows lay unfulfilled
His name was Isaac, silent, blessed
A mute whose tongue impressed her lately

But now red skies darken
The rooks lament
Windswept maelstroms harken
The approach of Lilith's nightmare kingdom

The woman in her astral dreams
Became more vivid, livid, obscene
Scatted on the throne of onyx blasphemies
Emanating raw desire and the surging urge to scream

Darkness crept into her face
She stood erect
And spoke of riches and their whereabouts
Finding in Isaac the need to place
A hidden Templar necklace lest the month run out

For now stormed the vainglorious
In her palace of mass delight
Her power dawned victorious
Victoria the key, her mind unfastened
By flights of morbid fancy
Psychomancy, rites of ancient wrong
Sweet seductions, peaked eruptions
Spiking through impatient song

Cold cloister kept the dead apart
At the retreat of the sacred heart

The gate to hell was forced apart
At the retreat of the sacred heart