Down By The Salley Gardens Analysis

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.

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‘Down by the Salley Gardens’ is a short poem written by WB 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, ‘she bid me take love/life easy’.
With the use of commas injected within the lines and the end stopped punctuation at the end of each line, it is clear to see that the poem holds a solid yet natural rhythm throughout. ‘She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;’.
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 strong rhymes instead of using weak, two-syllable rhymes, such as ‘I did meet and snow-white feet’.
His choice of putting the rhymes at the end rather than burying them shows that he want to draw the readers attention to them.
The combination of the rhythm and the rhyming couplets gives 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. ‘My love and I did meet’ and in the second stanza ‘my love and I did stand’.
The poem is also interesting as it holds many themes. The main one 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 most probable that it acts as a metaphorical role as the man’s love. ‘ she bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;’.
I personally like the poem as its lyrical form creates an imaginative text that draws the readers in and the rhythm and rhyme gives it a sense of flexibility.

| Posted on 2008-10-16 | by a guest