Down By The Salley Gardens

 "Down by the Salley Gardens" (Irish: Gort na Saileán) is a poem by William Butler Yeats published in The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems 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 Ballisodare, Sligo, who often sings them to herself." The "old song" may have been the ballad The Rambling Boys of Pleasure which contains the following verse:

"Down by yon flowery garden my love and I we first did meet.

I took her in my arms and to her I gave kisses sweet

She bade me take life easy just as the leaves fall from the tree.

But I being young and foolish, with my darling did not agree."

The similarity to the first verse of the Yeats version is unmistakable and would suggest that this was indeed the song Yeats remembered the old woman singing. The rest of the song, however, is quite different.

Yeats's original title, "An Old Song Re-Sung", reflected his debt to The Rambling Boys of Pleasure. It first appeared under its present title when it was reprinted in Poems in 1895.

It has been suggested that the location of the "Salley Gardens" was on the banks of the river at Ballysadare near Sligo where the residents cultivated trees to provide roof thatching materials. "Salley" or "sally" is a form of the Standard English word "sallow", i.e., a tree of the genus Salix. It is close in sound to the Irish word saileach, meaning willow.

The verse was subsequently set to music by Herbert Hughes to the traditional air The Moorlough Shore (also known as "The Maids of Mourne Shore") in 1909. In the 1920s composer Rebecca Clarke (1886–1979) set the text to her own music. The composer John Ireland (1879–1962) set the words to an original melody in his song cycle Songs Sacred and Profane, written in 1929–31. There is also a vocal setting by the poet and composer Ivor Gurney, which was published in 1938. Benjamin Britten published a setting of the poem in 1943, using the tune Hughes collected. In 1988, the American composer John Corigliano wrote and published his setting with the G. Schirmer Inc. publishing company.

To download the easy alphanotes and chords sheet music, look here. Enjoy!

Lyrics: 

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 life easy, as the leaves grow on the trees
But I, being young and foolish, with her I did not agree

In a field by the river, my love and I did stand
And on my leaning shoulder she placed her snow-white hand
She bid me take love easy, as the grass grows on the weirs
But I was young and foolish and now I am full of tears

Down by the Salley gardens, my love and I did meet
And she passed the Salley gardens with little snow-white feet
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs
But I was young and foolish and now I am full of tears