Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, on February 27, 1807. He entered Bowdoin College at the early age of fifteen, graduating there in 1825. He then spent about three years abroad preparing himself for a position, as Professor of Modern Languages at Bowdoin, which he took Longfellow was a scholarly and cultured poet, influenced much by foreign literatures and proficient in translation. His verse is rarely impassioned, but is usually simple, smooth, and polished. America has had no finer narrative poet; and it is unquestionable that this form of poetry was well adapted to his genius, which was fluent, but not often strongly emotional. The Wreck of the Hesperus (Page 211)Longfellow's diary for the date December 17, 1839, contains the following entry: "News of shipwrecks horrible on the coast. Twenty bodies washed ashore near Gloucester, one lashed to a piece of wreck. There is a reef called Norman's Woe, where many of these took place; among others the schooner Hesperus—I must write a ballad upon this." Two weeks later he wrote: "I sat last evening till twelve o'clock by my fire, smoking, when suddenly it came into my mind to write the 'Ballad of the Schooner Hesperus,' which I accordingly did. Then I went to bed, but I could not sleep. New Published first in 1841 in Ballads and Other Poems. Paul Revere's Ride (Page 214)Published in 1863 as The Landlord's Tale in the first series of Tales of a Wayside Inn. General Gage, commander of the British forces in Boston and vicinity, despatched, on the night of April 18, 1775, a body of troops to seize stores said to be concealed at Concord. According to the story, Paul Revere spread the warning throughout the surrounding country, and when the British arrived at Lexington they found a small body of militia lined up to oppose them. A skirmish ensued in which the first blood of the war was spilled, several being killed and others wounded. |