She urges him to “take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree”. It’s a kind of lament by a young man who meets a beautiful girl in the Salley Gardens but then loses her, presumably for failing to accept what she has to say. Ironically, considering it was written by a great poet regarded by many as a literary genius, the song is one of the simplest you will find anywhere in the Irish music repertoire. Down by the Salley Gardens, my love and I did meet W B Yeats
Nevertheless, it has become one of the most recorded Irish songs of all time and has attracted the attention of performers from widely different musical backgrounds. Down by the Salley Gardens has an unusual background for a song that has passed into the Irish folk music tradition.ĭown by the Salley Gardens was written by W B Yeats, who is generally known as one of Ireland’s greatest poets and not usually associated with being a song writer.
