Down by the Salley Gardens – W. B. Yeats

Down by the Salley Gardens – W. B. Yeats (1865- 1939)

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.

salley:             willow

weirs:            a low level wall or barrier built across a river in order to control the flow of water or change its direction

About the poet:

William Butler Yeats, poet and playwright, was born in Dublin, Ireland on 13^th June 1865, but moved to ChisWick , London in 1867 due to his father’s career as a lawyer and did not return to Ireland until 1881, where he studied at the Metropolitan School of Art, it was here that he met fellow poet George Russell who shared his interest in mysticism.

“Down by the Salley Gardens’, first published as “An Old Song Resung” in the “Wanderings of Oisin and other Poems” in 1889. “Down by the Salley Gardens” was originally an old Irish folk song, Yeats turned it into a poem as a dedication to oral tradition.

Summary:

“Down by the Salley Gardens” is a short poem written by W. B. Yeats describing both love and nature. The poem is split into two stanzas with two rhyming couplets in each.

The poem is written in the first person that draws the reader strongly into the theme, relating it to personal events. Yeats has the woman deliver the advice and the young man foolishly not take it, so the point is driven home by this repetition making it resemble typical conversational language, as “She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;”

The most significant effect in the poem is the obvious rhyming scheme present at the end of each line. Yeats defines the rhyming clearly by using rhyme scheme ‘ab ab ab’, such as “I did meet and snow-white feet”.

The rhyming couplets give the poem a sing-song style which gives it a positive and light tone. The poem is unique in that it holds many forms of repetition throughout the description.  The second stanza mimics the first theme-wise however its descriptive texts shows that it occurs afterwards. The similarity of expression is as “my love and I did meet” in the first stanza and      “my love and I did stand” in the second stanza

The poem is quite interesting as it holds many themes. The main one is being the man’s regret with not staying with his love. However, it is important to note that nature also plays a large role within the poem rather than having a literal significance. It is the most probable that Nature acts as a metaphorical role as the man’s love:

“She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;”

The lyrical form of the poem creates an imaginative text that draws that reader to a sense of flexibility.

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