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_.