The Shrine of Mad Laughter

Lyrics for The Shrine of Mad Laughter

God of terror, very low dost thou bring us, Very low hast thou brought us... A sensation of everlasting rot and those frantic wails, No, it is not a fall into The abyss, the defiance of descent, A coronation beyond liberty and slavery; The cry of woe and deliverance exudes a flame, Evasive as sound and ether: An instant of collusion with death, Without hope nor prospect, yet it is a World below and above and in all eternity, A gift of fever, the wind of death That sustains the life in me, Yes, the lightness of hovering in permanent Anguish; I dared to borrow those words, To articulate them and to savour Their turpitude, as I beheld the shrine of mad laughter. The limit is crossed with a weary horror: Hope seemed a respect which fatigue grants To the necessity of the world. As if Death was dashed onto the death within, A violent thrust stealing the light of the eyes, A ray of darkness, a negation, The bread of bitterness that ignites neither devotion nor fervour; Resplendent nothingness! Make all things appear with clarity, Ruined in the flame of repudiation, in the flame of God! Interwoven joy and confusion, a stabbing confusion, Asphyxiation from within, yet I gained this certitude: Malediction, degradation, sown in me like seeds, Now belonged to death, in harbouring a desire for the hideous, I was beckoning to death. Insatiable combustion, expand, this body is the vessel of grace! The idea of God is pale next to that of perdition, But of this I could have no inkling in advance.