All Hope in Eclipse – CRADLE OF FILTH

From the album Bitter Suites to Succubi (2001)

A thousand nights once succored Me In the shadow of Miss Anne Thropy Sat gargoyle-limbed amid My licking flame

A cruel tongue at work in Her secret vaults Sent Rebellion’s embers into revolt The coming of extinction Synced to whimpers of my name Legion I arose, a flood of inhumanity An acid reign to purify the world The Asp at Pharaoh’s breast The Atom split under duress A sniper at the gates of spattered pear

My heart, torn apart, left a rifled grave Save for an unfurled flag of hate To enthrall a mindless zombie race

All hail, all hail, all hail the serpentine’s gift All hail, love fails, all hope lies in eclipse

Black bibles I inscribed, The words “Damnation through design” Seemed a bitter truth far better for the lie For as hope was felled by reason Forlorn became the season And Death was swift to swallow on the hells of life

Lowered souls, growing cold, tendered easy prey When heaven’s flock, a fair game, dropped I bored of war with God with greater thrones to claim

All hail, all hail, all hail the Libertine’s wish All hail, love fails, all hope lies in eclipse

Then between the past and the ravening dark A sly Messiah came In the thick of treaty with obligatory greed She stole the soul hate had sold away

An ancient chill blew down the centuries That night atonement’s eyes Lit a burning man in Me

When love lay bleeding And Fates sate feeding From wounds gored ‘neath Those cherubic wings She of kindred light Gladly sacrificed Eternity Just to be With Me

As the moon whose silvered fingers play On words and dreams too cursed for day She led my hand to lands I’d not accrued Where the Faun Dawn bathed Her golden hair And faith renewed, leapt joyous there I praised their worth, then planned their conquest too

All hail, all hail, all hail the serpentine’s gift All hail, love fails, all hope lies in eclipse

All hail, all hail, all hail the Libertine’s wish All hail, love fails, all hope lies in eclipse And ignorance is truly bliss