Batwings (A Limnal Hymn)
Coil

(The key to joy is disobedience
There is no guilt and there is no shame)

A moon-piece to fetch up the golden cup
A snow-piece to avoid the great heat of the sun
Is kept in the night and by the light of the moon

An ice-piece so as they seem forever fallen
A night-piece of the dismal supper and strange entertainment
A rare chance-piece, a handsome piece of deformity
The skin of a snake bred out of the spinal marrow of a man

With stones and illegible inscriptions found about great ruins
Pictures of three remarkable steeples, or towers
Built purposely awry, so as they seem eternally tipping and falling

A transcendent perfume made of the richest odorates
Kept in a box of translucent scale

A glass of spirits made of ethereal salt, hermetically sealed up
Kept continually in quicksilver, of so volatile a nature
That it will scarcely endure the light
And therefore only shown in winter
Or by the light of a carbuncle, or a firefly

And batwings
And batwings
And batwings sing this limnal hymn
A wideness opening and closing to keep the darkness sealed within
To keep the darkness sealed within
To keep the darkness sealed within

To keep the darkness sealed within
A moon-piece to fetch up the golden cup

[The singing that follows is not in English. When this song was played at John Balance's funeral service, Peter Christopherson described it as a language that only he knows.]


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Lyrics by Coil

  A Slip in the Marylebone Road   A Warning from the Sun   All the Pretty Little Horses   Amber Rain   An Apology   An Emergency   An Unearthly Red   Ascension   Assassins of Hakim Bey   At the Heart of It All   AYOR   Babylero   Backwards   Bang Bang   Bee Stings   Blood from the Air   Blue Rats   Boy in a Suitcase   Broccoli   Broken Aura   Cathedral in Flames   Cave of Roses   Chasms   Christmas is Now Drawing Near   Circles of Mania   Cold Cell   Dark Start   elph.zwölf   Enochian Calling   Enochian Calling II   Escalation   Ether   Feeder   Fffetish   Finite Bees   Fire of the Mind   First Dark Ride   For Us They Will   Further   Glowworms/Waveforms   Godhead=Deathhead   Going Up   Heartworms   Her Friends the Wolves.....   I Am Angie Bowie (Sine Waves)   Is Suicide A Solution?   Kala   Last Rites of Spring   Lorca Not Orca   Lost Rivers of London   MÜ-ÜR   Madriiax   Metal in the Head   Montecute   Omlagus Garfungiloops   Panic   Paranoid Inlay   pHILM #1 (vox)   Queens of the Circulating Library   Red Queen   Red Skeletons   Refusal of Leave to Land   Restless Day   Rosa Decidua   S is for Sleep   S is for Sleep   Scope   Sewn Open   Sex with Sun Ra (Part 1 - Saturnalia)   Sex with Sun Ra (Part 2 - Sigillaricia)   Sick Mirrors (version) [Live Three]   Sicktone   Snow Falls into Military Temples   Solar Lodge   Something   Strange Birds   Sun Ascention   Tattooed Man   Teenage Lightning 2005   Tenderness of Wolves   The Auto-Asphyxiating Hierophant   The Auto-Asphyxiating Hierophant   The Broken Wheel   The Coppice Meat   The Dark Age of Love   The Dreamer is Still Asleep - Somnambulist in an A...   The Golden Section   The Last Amethyst Deceiver   The Sea Priestess   The Spoiler   The Universe is a Haunted House (Live Four)   The Wheel   The Wraiths and Strays of Paris   Theme from Blue   Tiny Golden Books   Triple Sons and the One You Bury   Triple Sun   Where Are You?   Who By Fire   Who'll Fall?   Windowpane

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