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.

For terror or ferocity or images of pain, the art of the twelfth century had no use except to give a higher value to their images of love.  The figures on the west portal of Chartres are alive with the spirit of Adam’s poetry, but it is the spirit of the Virgin.  Like Saint Bernard, Adam lavished his affections on Mary, and even more than Saint Bernard he could claim to be her poet-laureate.  Bernard was not himself author of the hymn “Stella Maris” which brought him the honour of the Virgin’s personal recognition, but Adam was author of a dozen hymns in which her perfections were told with equal fervour, and which were sung at her festivals.  Among these was the famous

Salve, Mater Pietatis,
 Et totius Trinitatis
 Nobile Triclinium!

a compliment so refined and yet so excessive that the Venerable Thomas Cantimpratensis who died a century later, about 1280, related in his “Apiarium” that when “venerabilis Adam” wrote down these lines, Mary herself appeared to him and bent her head in recognition.  Although the manuscripts do not expressly mention this miracle, they do contain, at that stanza, a curious note expressing an opinion, apparently authorized by the prior, that, if the Virgin had seen fit to recognize the salutation of the Venerable Adam in this manner, she would have done only what he merited:  “ab ea resalutari et regratiari meruit.”