Adam Lay Ybounden [English translation]

Adam lay bound

Bound in a bond;

Four thousand years

He considered not too long.

And all was for an apple,

An apple that he took,

As clerics find

Written in their1book.

If never the apple,

The apple had been taken

Then never would our lady

Have become2 Heaven's Queen.

Blessed by the time

when the apple was taken,

for that reason we may sing

Thanks to God.

1. I believe that OE "here" was still sometimes used in the ME peiod, as it took time for Northumbrian forms like "þeier" and "þeȝȝre" to be universally accepted as replacements for the West Saxon forms, despite their eliminating a lot of scope for confusion and misunderstanding.2. I don't know what else to do with "A" than treat it as a prefix that has somehow become detached from the verb, so that "A ben" is something like "onwardly been" which I guess would mean something like "become"