A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?
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.
William Butler Yeats
I love this Yeats poem so much because a "salley" happens to be 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" or "salley trees" in parts of Ireland. This poem was subsequently set to music by Herbert Hughes to the air "The Maids of the Mourne Shore" in 1909.
'Tis my Scots-Irish I'm a-feelin', stretchin' its bonny legs and doin' a fancy jig. Your DNA doesn't have to be tingling to enjoy this song. Everybody is Irish this week. And please don't forget to send a big chunk of your good Irish energies and prayers to our dear friends in Japan.
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 ofOisin 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!
