Branduardi Canta Yeats, Nel giardino dei salici

Nel giardino dei salici ho incontrato il mio amore;
là lei camminava con piccoli piedi bianchi di neve.
Là lei mi pregava che prendessi l'amore come viene,
così come le foglie crescono sugli alberi.
Così giovane ero, io non le diedi ascolto;
così sciocco ero, io non le diedi ascolto.
Fu là presso il fiume che con il mio amore mi fermai,
e sulle mie spalle lei posò la sua mano di neve.
Là lei mi pregava che prendessi la vita così come viene,
così come l'erba cresce sugli argini del fiume;
ero giovane e sciocco ed ora non ho che lacrime.

English

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 tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her would 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.

Down By The Salley Gardens

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Down By The Salley Gardens (Irish: Gort na Saileán) is a traditional Irish song. Sometimes known as "An Traigh Mughdhorna", "The Maids of Mourne Shore" and "The Mourne Shore", it can be sung in either English or Irish.

It is sometimes listed as a poem by William Butler Yeats, after the words were included in a book of his poems, The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems, published in 1889. However, the case is that Yeats published the poem as a tribute to oral tradition; it was based on a fragment of a song he recalled hearing an old Irish woman sing. Yeats' noted that This is 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. The verse was subsequently set to music by Herbert Hughes to the air The Maids of the Mourne Shore in 1909.

"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.