[I. Benighted Like Usher] Gloria in excelsis deo Gloria in excelsis deo Snuffed tapers sighed As Death left impressing His crest of cold tears on the Countess Benighted like ill-fated Usher The House of Bathory shrouded 'Neath grief's dark facade If only I could have wept In mourning by Her side I would have clasped Her so tight Like storm-beached Aphrodite Drowned on Kytherean tides And Kissed Her For from Her alone My lips would have known Enigmas of shadowy vistas Where pleasures took flesh And pain, remorseless Came freezing the breath Of raucous life hushed unto whispers Benighted. Inhaling the pale waning moonlight that crept Through the crypt of Her Lord who so lucidly slept Benighted. Exhaling the wail of black widowhood's toll Waxing eternal night entered Her soul [II. A Murder of Ravens in Fugue] Now haranguing grey skies With revenge upon life Gnathic and Sapphic Needs begged gendercide Delusions of Grandier denounced the revolt Of descrying cursed glass, disenchanted in vaults Encircled by glyphs midst Her sin-sistered cult With hangman's abandon She plied spiritworlds To Archangels in bondage From light to night hurled Cast down to the earth where torment would unfurl... But soon, Her tarot proved Hybrid rumours spread like tumours Would accrue And blight Her stars However scarred To better bitter truths Of cold bloodbaths As bodies rose In rigid droves To haunt Her from their Shallow burials imposed When wolves exhumed Their carthen wombs Where heavy frosts had laboured long To bare their wounds To the depths of Her soul they pursued Wielding their poison they flew Like a murder of ravens in fugue And knowing their raptures Would shatter Her dreams She clawed blackened books for damnation's reprieve Baneful cawed canons on amassed enemies So Hallow's Eve As She received Like Bellona to the ball Those enemies Fell-sisters heaved Her torturies Cross stained flagstones To Her carriage reined to flee But She knew She must brave the night through Though fear crept a deathshead o'er the moon Like a murder of ravens in Fugue For each masked, jewelled gaze held dread purpose Horror froze painted eyes to cold stares And even Her dance In the vast mirrors cast Looked the ill of Her future If fate feasted there... [III. Eyes That Witnessed Madness] In an age crucified by the nails of faith When rank scarecrows of christ blighted lands An aloof Countess born an obsidian wraith Dared the abyss knowing well She was damned Her life whispered grief like a funeral march Twisted and yearning, obsessed an entranced With those succumbing to cruelty Crushed 'neath the gait of Her dance A whirlwind of fire that swept through the briers Of sweet rose Her thickets of black thorn had grasped... She demanded the Heavens and forever to glean The elixir of Youth from the pure Whilst Her lesbian fantasies Reamed to extremes O'er decades unleashed Came for blood's silken cure But Her reign ended swiftly For Dark Gods dreamt too deep To heed Her pleas When Her gaolers were assailed With condemnations from a priest Who'd stammered rites In the dead of night For maidens staining winding sheets And She postured proud When Her crimes were trowelled And jezebelled to peasant lips Though She smelt the fires That licked limbs higher To the tortured cunts of accomplices So ends this twisted fable's worth And though spared the pyre's bite By dint of nobled bloodlined birth Her sins (crimes) garnered Her no respite Forever severed from the thrill of coming night Where slow Death alone could grant Her flight "The Spirits have all