This week is a short but sweet poem from W.B Yeats. It is ranked number 78 in the top 100 Irish poems list.

This is actually one of Yeats earlier poems and its success comes from the sorrow and regret that runs throughout the poem.

The “Salley Gardens” were said to be located on the banks of the river at Ballysadare in Sligo, where locals grew trees to produce roof thatching materials.

Many singers and ensembles have performed the poem, which is usually adapted to the music of “The Maids of Mourne Shore.”

There is a huge list that you can find over on the Wikipedia page here.

Enjoy this great and short Irish poem by W. B Yeats.

Down By the Salley Gardens

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

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.

That’s it. Told you it was a short and sweet top Irish poem. Did you enjoy this poem? Comment below.

Down by the Salley Gardens: meaning and analysis

‘Down by the Salley Gardens’ appeared in Yeats’s first collection, The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems (1889). Yeats explained that it was an attempt to reconstruct an old song from three lines he heard, imperfectly remembered, from an old woman in Ballysodare, County Sligo.

What it means

A young man remembers meeting his love by the salley gardens. A ‘salley’ is a willow, from the Irish saileach, and willow gardens were grown for the rods used in basket-making and thatching. She told him to take love and life easy, as the leaves and the grass grow, but he was ‘young and foolish’ and did not listen. Now he is full of tears. It is a song of regret, told with a folk song’s simplicity.

The song

The poem is better known today as a song. In 1909 the composer Herbert Hughes set it to the traditional air ‘The Maids of Mourne Shore’, and that is the version most people know. Benjamin Britten also arranged it, and it has been recorded by countless singers since.

Key themes

Youth and regret
Love lost through haste
Nature as a guide to living

More Irish poems

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