Cirrus@Austlit

Author's note (at foot of poem): The foregoing lines were suggested by a beautiful old Irish song, called Aileen a Rouen - Anglice, Ellen the beloved, whose lover, a young prince of surpassing beauty, was expelled from his country by the English invaders; but having heard in his exile that Aileen was about to be married to an Englishman, he returned to Ireland, disguised as an itinerant minstrel. Arrived at her father's mansion, on the eve of her marriage, he sought an opportunity to accost her; but she, unwitting of his presence, did not notice him. When singing, and at the same time composing Aileen a Rouen, and accompanying the beautiful melody on his harp, he acquainted her with his characer, and the maid and her lover in alternate song devised means for the former's escape.