William Butler Yeats: down by the salley gardens...

An intense and evocative poetry of the great poet Dublin, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923

by L. C.

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 whould 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)

Source: William Butler Yeats, Crossways, 1889