W.B.Yeats – ‘The Salley Gardens’

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HolmanHunt-The HirelingShepherd

William Holman Hunt – The hireling Shepherd (detail) 1851 (Manchester Art Gallery, UK

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.

 

William Butler Yeats
1865-1939

 

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Yeats has said that his composition of this poem was “an attempt to reconstruct an old song from three lines imperfectly remembered by an old peasant woman in the village of Ballisdoare, Co.Sligo.  “Salley” or “sally” is a form of the Standard English word “sallow”, i.e., a tree of the genus  Salix. It is close in sound to the Irish word saileach, meaning willow.   Click on the link below to hear a sung version of Yeats’ poem by Maura O’Connell with Karen Matheson …

‘Down By The Sally Gardens’

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8 thoughts on “W.B.Yeats – ‘The Salley Gardens’”

  2. Thank you Roland, isn’t Yeats just something. Then you go and add this song and now I am full of tears. :). Warm ones, for the beauty in the world.
    I have heard this song sung the same way – by one woman – just standing up in a group and sing. After that a man stood up and sang another equally strong emotional song. Wow, what an evening.
    The Irish are quite some people.
    Miriam

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