Essays on Poetry

8/15/2019 Essays on Poetry

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Andrea Fonseca Murillo

Literature in English II Group 1

Essay on poetry

Down by the Salley Gardens by William Butler Yeats

1 Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet; A

2 She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet. A

3 She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree; B

4 But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree. B

5 In a field by the river my love and I did stand, C

6 And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand. C

7 She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs; D

8 But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears. D

Down by the Salley Gardens was written by William Butler Yeats, it was

first published in The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems in 1889. The poem

is composed by two stanzas divided in two couplets each one; that means, that

all the poem has four couplets and eight lines. The rhyme scheme is AABB


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CCDD, this poem does not have a rhythmical pattern stablished, that is to say,

that it has a combination of different feet in its structure. For instance, 1, 2 and

5 verses presented five iambic feet and one anapest foot. Additionally, lines 3

and 7, there are six iambic feet and one spondee. Furthermore, verse 4 show six

iambic and one trochee; 8 line one trochee. Finally, line 6 is composed by

iambic hexameter.

Those variations in metre and rhythm could reflect the emotional changes

of the speaker in the poem. In a first stage, the speaker shows doubt about the

love proposal of the lady / But I, being young and foolish, with her would not

agree/, this line let the reader know the reason of the doubt, for instance, when

you are young, you are immature and you are afraid about the decision that you

take for your future, perhaps the speaker in the first stanza was scare about the

feelings that he had. But then he regrets about ignore the advice that was given

by the lady / She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;/ in this

line the lady propose to him to liberate his tie and to have a life free, however

he does not accept /But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears / and

as result of that he lost the love of his life.

This poem is full of symbols and imagery, the first line /Down by the

salley gardens my love and I did meet;/ the main symbol of this line is the Salley

that is a willow tree and according to the Celtic mythology it searches increase


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the essence of love1. Bearing in mind this, the speaker shows us a couple that

fell in love among the salley gardens, where, there are a representation of love

and loss taken from the willow trees. Additionally, the images of the leaves and

the river are very important in this poem; / She bid me take love easy, as the

leaves grow on the tree;/ in this line it is possible to see a simile where the author

compares love with the leaves of the willow, that grown without beautiful and

without difficulty. Also the use of the river all along the poem, /In a field by the

river my love and I did stand,/ this represents the flow of time and life, that

sometimes passed very fast and we do not have the possibility to take advantage

of the things that we have, and them we just have the regret of having lost

something.

As a conclusion, we can see how the poem shows the foolishness of

young people, and the opportunities that are leaving behind just because you are

afraid of the consequences. I think that the poem is an advice to enjoy life and

take advantage of everything that is given to us, because at the end all this things

always leaves us a knowledge.

1 Meaning of willow taking from http://www.whats-your-sign.com/celtic-meaning-willow-tree.html

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