Down by the Salley Gardens

Down By The Salley Gardens (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."^[1] Yeats's original title, "An Old Song Re-Sung", reflected this; it first appeared under its present title when it was reprinted in Poems (London: T. Fisher Unwin) in 1895.^[2] 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 set the text to music.^[3] There is also a vocal setting by the poet and composer Ivor Gurney, which was published in 1938.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Helferich_Clarke

"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.[1]

Poem

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 did 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.

Recordings

The song has been part of the repertoire of many singers and groups. Notable recordings include:

Alfred Deller included the song on his album Western Wind (1958).
Marianne Faithfull recorded the song on her joint-debut album of folk songs titled Come My Way (1965)
The Rankin Family covered this song on their greatest hits album Collection
Clannad included the song (sung in English) on their first live album Clannad in Concert (1979), Celtic Myst (1997), and on the live album Clannad Live in Concert (2005).
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
Meav, also from Celtic Woman, sung it on her solo cd Celtic Journey.
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".
The Whiffenpoofs of Yale have released a number of recordings (in English) with additional verses of a John Kelley arrangement of the Hughes melody.
Joseph McManners sang the song, too.
Angelo Branduardi made an italian version with the same Yeats' lyrics and a music of theirs in the album Branduardi canta Yeats
Redbird [2] (Kris Delmhorst,[3] Jeffrey Foucault,[4] [5] Peter Mulvey [6]) recorded Sally Gardens as track 14 on their self-titled 2004 album [7].
Irish-American singer Maura O'Connell recorded the song on her album Wandering Home.
Black 47 treatment in 40 Shades of Blue [8]
Tomás Mac Eoin sang it with instrumental accompaniment by The Waterboys in a 1989 recording. It was issued as a single by Tomás Mac Eoin in 1989 and is included on the 2008 Collectors Edition of the Waterboys album Room To Roam.
Cambridge Singers in an arrangement by John Rutter

 Kathleen Ferrier also recorded this

Notes

^ Quoted in M.H Abrams and Stephen Greenblatt eds., The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005. p. 2024.
^ Ford, Robert, W.B.Yeats: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 69
^ Jezic, D. P. (1988). Women composers: The lost tradition found (2nd ed., pp. 157-162). New York: The Feminist Press.