Down by the Salley Gardens

[1] Yeats indicated in a note that it was "an attempt to reconstruct an old song from three lines imperfectly remembered by an old peasant woman in the village of Ballisodare, County Sligo, who often sings them to herself.

Yeats's original title, "An Old Song Re-Sung", reflected his debt to "The Rambling Boys of Pleasure".

[4] It has been suggested that the location of the "Salley Gardens" was on the banks of the river at Ballysadare near Sligo where the residents cultivated trees to provide roof thatching materials.

[7][8] "Salley" or "sally" is a form of the Standard English word "sallow", i.e., a willow tree of the genus Salix.

The verse was set to music by Herbert Hughes to the traditional air "The Maids of Mourne Shore" in 1909.