The Wreck of The Hesperus In Verse, History and Idiom. Created Jul 17, 2007 | Updated Jul 17, 2007. Source: http://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A24370337. In December 1839 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the poem The Wreck of The Hesperus about a. schooner that crashed on a reef off the Massachusetts coast. Since then, there has been much. speculation as to whether it was one particular incident which provided the inspiration for the poem; or.