The English verses, compared with the Latin, are poor enough, with the canting jingle of a cheap religion and a thin philosophy, but by contrast and comparison they give higher value to the Latin. One feels the dignity and religious quality of Adam's chants the better for trying to give them an equivalent. One would not care to hazard such experiments on poetry of the highest class like that of Dante and Petrarch, but Adam was conventional both in verse and thought, and aimed at obtaining his effects from the skilful use of the Latin sonorities for the purposes of the chant. With dogma and metaphysics he dealt boldly and even baldly as he was required to do, and successfully as far as concerned the ear or the voice; but poetry was hardly made for dogma; even the Trinity was better expressed mathematically than by rhythm. With the stronger emotions, such as terror, Adam was still conventional, and showed that he thought of the chant more than of the feeling and exaggerated the sound beyond the value of the sense. He could never have written the "Dies Irae." He described the shipwreck of the soul in magnificent sounds without rousing an emotion of fear; the raging waves and winds that swept his bark past the abysses and up to the sky were as conventional as the sirens, the dragons, the dogs, and the pirates that lay in wait. The mast nodded as usual; the sails were rent; the sailors ceased work; all the machinery was classical; only the prayer to the Virgin saved the poetry from sinking like the ship; and yet, when chanted, the effect was much too fine to bear translation:-- Ave, Virgo singularis, Mater nostri Salutaris, Quae vocaris Stella Maris, Stella non erratica; Nos in hujus vitae mari Non permitte naufragari, Sed pro nobis Salutari Tuo semper supplica! Saevit mare, fremunt venti, Fluctus surgunt turbulenti; Navis currit, sed currenti Tot occurrunt obvia! Hic sirenes voluptatis, Draco, canes cum piratis, Mortem pene desperatis Haec intentant omnia. Post abyssos, nunc ad coelum Furens unda fert phaselum; Nutat malus, fluit velum, Nautae cessat opera; Contabescit in his malis Homo noster animalis; Tu nos, Mater spiritalis, Pereuntes liberal! Finer still is the famous stanza sung at Easter, in which Christ rises, the Lion of Judah, in the crash of the burst gates of death, at the roar of the Father Lion:-- Sic de Juda, leo fortis, Fractis portis dirae mortis, Die surgens tertia, Rugiente voce patris Ad supernae sinum matris Tot revexit spolia.