Analysis: Down by the Salley Gardens
Apr. 12th, 2008 09:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nyykiI'm working on this song for voice, and I've decided to really look into what it's telling us.
There is a lot of English and Irish folk song warning young men not to give their affections away too easily. This is one of those, but I think there is more going on here.
Down by the Salley gardens, my love and I did meet.
She walked 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, and with her did not agree.
In a field down by the river, my love and I did stand.
And on my leaning shoulder, she placed 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.
First, some definitions. Salley is an Irish slang term for Salish, their word for the Willow. So this is about a willow garden as the setting. Weirs are short dam-like fingers into rivers, streams, and lakes made to provide places to fish.
The thing that struck me about this was the poet's emphasis on the paleness of the singer's love. (Though sometimes atrributed to Yates, he included the song in a book as a tribute to old folk song, and supposedly heard an old Irish woman singing it) Paleness became fashionable in contrast to the prior image of feminine beauty, that of the paintings of Reuben, along with frailness, mostly due to the ravages of Tuberculosis.
In my first pass, I thought this might be a song of unrequited love, where the lover doesn't love the singer as much as the singer loves the lover. But she shows a lot of tenderness and affection for him. This has brought me to the conclusion that she is tubercular, knows it, and is warning him, in a gentle way, that he shouldn't get too passionate about her because she won't be around all that long.
I envision a third verse where the singer is walking the salley gardens alone, thinking of her and expressing sorrow that she is no longer living.
There is a lot of English and Irish folk song warning young men not to give their affections away too easily. This is one of those, but I think there is more going on here.
Down by the Salley gardens, my love and I did meet.
She walked 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, and with her did not agree.
In a field down by the river, my love and I did stand.
And on my leaning shoulder, she placed 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.
First, some definitions. Salley is an Irish slang term for Salish, their word for the Willow. So this is about a willow garden as the setting. Weirs are short dam-like fingers into rivers, streams, and lakes made to provide places to fish.
The thing that struck me about this was the poet's emphasis on the paleness of the singer's love. (Though sometimes atrributed to Yates, he included the song in a book as a tribute to old folk song, and supposedly heard an old Irish woman singing it) Paleness became fashionable in contrast to the prior image of feminine beauty, that of the paintings of Reuben, along with frailness, mostly due to the ravages of Tuberculosis.
In my first pass, I thought this might be a song of unrequited love, where the lover doesn't love the singer as much as the singer loves the lover. But she shows a lot of tenderness and affection for him. This has brought me to the conclusion that she is tubercular, knows it, and is warning him, in a gentle way, that he shouldn't get too passionate about her because she won't be around all that long.
I envision a third verse where the singer is walking the salley gardens alone, thinking of her and expressing sorrow that she is no longer living.
