Down By The Salley Gardens
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Down By The Salley Gardens (Irish: Gort na Saileán) is a traditional Irish song. It can be sung in either English or Irish. It is sometimes listed as a poem by William Butler Yeats, after it was included in a book of his poems, The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems, published in 1889. However, the case is that Yeats published the poem as a tribute to oral tradition; it was based on a fragment of a song he recalled hearing an old Irish woman sing. Yeats' noted that This is an attempt to reconstruct an old song from three lines imperfectly remembered by an old peasant woman in the village of Ballysodare, Sligo, who often sings them to herself.
The verse was subsequently set to music by Herbert Hughes to the air The Maids of the Mourne Shore in 1909.
"Salley" is most likely from the Irish saileách, meaning willow ie, a tree of the genus Salix
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[edit] English
Down by the sally gardens my love and I did meet;
She passed the sally gardens with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.
In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.
[edit] Irish
Is thíos i nGort na Saileán
sea casadh dom mo rún
Ba luath a cos ar féar ann
is ba luaineach a leagan siúil
Sé dúirt sí liom bheith suaimhneach
mar a fhásann duilliúr is bláth
Ach bhí mise óg is uaibhreach
is níor éist mé le guth mo ghrá.
Is thíos cois abhann go déaneamh
sea sheas mé le mo ghrá
Gualainn ar ghualainn le chéile
is leag sí orm lámh
Sé dúirt sí liom bheith suaimhneach
mar a fhásann féar aníos
Ach bhí mise óg is uabhreach
'stá na deoira anois mo chloí
Is thíos i nGort na Saileán
sea casadh dom mo rún...
[edit] Recordings
The song has been part of the repertoire of many singers and groups. Notable recordings include:
- Clannad included the song (sung in English) on their first live album Clannad in Concert (1979).
- Now And In A Time To Be, a collection of Yeats poems set to music. The version included on that album was sung in Irish by Tamalin.
- Male soprano Aris Christofellis accompanied by Theodore Kotepanos on piano recorded an arrangement of the song by Benjamin Britten on his album Recital.
- Órla Fallon of Celtic Woman on her solo CD The Water Is Wide
- Recorded as flute instrumental by flutist James Galway
- Lim Hyung Joo recorded the song (sung in English) and conditionally titled his album "The Sally Gardens".
