Down by the Salley Gardens

Track notes:The lyrics of this traditional Irish song come from a poem by William Butler Yeats which was published in 1889 but based on a much older song; He said 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". My arrangement is loosely based on an arrangement by Rebecca Clarke in the 1920s. Salley is an old word for Willow.

Down by the Salley Gardens my love and I did meet;
She passed the Salley Gardens with little snow-white feet.
Down by the salley Gardens my love and I did stand
And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow white hand

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 trees;
But I, being young and foolish, with her did not agree.

In a field by the river my love and I would stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she laid 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 am full of tears.