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 on his return. There he remained six years, leaving in 1834 to become a professor in Harvard College. His first book of poems, _Voices of the Night_, appeared in 1839, and two years later he published _Ballads and other Poems_. Both volumes were received cordially and had a wide circulation. Other important later works were _Evangeline_ (1847), _Hiawatha_ (1855), _The Courtship of Miles Standish_ (1858), and _Tales of a Wayside Inn_ (finished 1873). In 1854 he left off teaching and settled down to a quiet literary life. During a trip to Europe in 1868 he was given honorary degrees by both Oxford and Cambridge. He died in Boston in 1882. It is a testimonial to his popularity in England that his bust was placed in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey, the only memorial to an American author there. 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 thoughts were running in my mind, and I got up to add them to the ballad. It was three by the clock. I then went to bed and fell asleep. I feel pleased with the ballad. It hardly cost me an effort. It did not come into my mind by lines, but by stanzas." 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_.