Batwings (A Limnal Hymn) Lyrics

(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".]