Salley Gardens
We definitely need a little historical Irish background to really understand what a "salley garden" is in the poem. But once we understand that "salley" is just another word for a willow tree, we u...
Love
It's all about love in this ballad, but it's the kind of love that teaches the speaker some tough lessons about life. As a young and foolish boy, he just can't get the whole notion of taking things...
River and Weirs
You may hear a lot about rivers in ballads about love. Usually a poet uses the symbolism of a river to reflect upon flow of life or time. The speaker seems to be doing the same thing in this poem w...
Snow-white
There aren't any magical princes here or dwarfs, but the imagery of the girl's snow-white extremities may make us think of fairytales nonetheless. Usually writers use this sort of description to gi...