Down by the Salley Gardens
- 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.
经那些柳园往下去
- 经那些柳园往下去，爱人和我曾会面；
- 用一双雪白的小脚，她走过那些柳园。
- 她教我把恋爱看轻易，一如枝头生叶，
- 可是我，年少又无知，不同意她的见解。
- 在河边一片野地里，爱人和我曾驻足；
- 在我斜倚的肩头上，她搭着雪白小手。
- 她教我把生活看轻易，一如堰上长草，
- 可是我年少又无知，如今满眼泪滔滔。
傅浩 译
此诗原题《老歌重唱》，作于1888年。叶芝（1889）说“这是根据斯来沟郡巴里索代尔村的一个经常自哼自唱的老农妇记不完全的三行老歌词重写的尝试”（《校刊本》，页90）。这首老歌可能是民间谣曲《寻欢作乐的浪子们》，其中有句云：“一天傍晚我从柳园旁边路过，／在那里看见这小美妞，她对我这样说：／她劝我把爱情看轻易，如枝头生绿叶，／可我年少又无知，不同意爱人的见解。”
叶芝诗集（增订本） 2018 ——
Yeats claimed that 'This is an attempt to reconstruct an old song from three lines imperfectly remembered by an old peasant woman in the vil- lage of Ballysodare, Sligo, who often sings them to herself' (1889: VP p. 90). The work is close to the first two stanzas of a poem with the same title in the P. J. McCall Ballad Collection in the National Library of Ire- land. Yeats glossed 'salley' as 'willow' (1895; VP p. 797). pastoral tradition as an ideal realm of rustic contentment.
The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, Volume I—