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]1 easy, as the leaves grow on the [tree]2; But I, being young and foolish, with her [did]3 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.
Two Songs
Song Cycle by June Harple Collins (b. 1915?)
Word count: 91
?. Down by the Salley Gardens  [sung text not yet checked]
Authorship
- by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), title 1: "An old song re-sung", title 2: "Down by the Salley Gardens", appears in The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems, first published 1889 [author's text checked 2 times against a primary source]
See other settings of this text.
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- FRI Frisian (Geart van der Meer) , "Bij de marswâl", copyright © 2013, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- GER German (Deutsch) (Sharon Krebs) , copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Retitled "Down by the Salley Gardens" with the subtitle "An old song re-sung" when republished in Poems in 1895.
Note: "salley" is an anglicized form of the Irish word "saileach", which means willow.
1 Gurney: "life"2 Edmunds: "trees"
3 Edmunds, Gurney: "would"
Researcher for this text: Ted Perry