Down by the Sally Gardens (Wytze Oostenbrug)

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•  Posted on 2024-05-06(Posted 2024-05-06)  CPDL #80520:         

Editor: Wytze Oostenbrug (submitted 2024-05-06).   Score information: A4, 4 pages, 268 kB   Copyright: CPDL

Edition notes: This is the 1st of 5 English folksongs.

General Information

Title: Down by the Sally Gardens
Composer: Wytze Oostenbrug
Lyricist: William Butler Yeats
Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Folksong

Language: English
Instruments: A cappella

First published: 2024
Description: "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, County 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". The poem first appeared under its present title when it was reprinted in Poems in 1895. Location 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.

External websites:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_by_the_Salley_Gardens
• Composer website: https://wytzeoostenbrugmuziek.com/folksongs/
• Playing score and audio: https://youtu.be/eeY8vprSeG8

Original text and translations

English text

1. Down by the Sally Gardens
Irish Traditional — Lyrics: William Butler Yeats (1889)

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 life easy, as the leaves grow on the tree.
But I was young and foolish, with her did not agree.

In a field down 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.