Willow's Weekly Word

DOWN BY THE SALLEY GARDENS

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley 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.

.

~W. B. Yeats

Did you know a salley is a willow tree? "Salley" is an anglicisation

of the Irish saileach, meaning willow, i.e., a tree of the genus Salix.

Willows are known as "salleys", "sallies" or "salley trees" in parts of

Ireland.

.

"Down By The Salley Gardens" (in the Irish, "Gort na Saileán") is a

well known poem by William Butler Yeats included in his book, The

Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems, published in 1889. Yeats

indicated in a note that it was "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. In the 1920s composer

Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979) set the text to music.

I thought you might enjoy this recording of W. B. Yeats, himself,

reading this poem:

And here is the familiar tune, as well:



So, how's this for a Willowy Irish post?

PS~~
I stand corrected, Bloggies! This is not read by Yeats
himself, as I previously stated, but by Tom O'Bedlam
for SpokenVerse on YouTube. Mr. O'Bedlam (witty
name), you have a most divine voice! Thank you!

info from Wikipedia
photo from Flickr