 As a very private man , Longfellow did not often add autobiographical elements to his poetry . Two notable exceptions are dedicated to the death of members of his family . " Resignation " , written as a response to the death of his daughter Fanny in 1848 , does not use first @-@ person pronouns and is instead a generalized poem of mourning . The death of his second wife Frances , as biographer Charles Calhoun wrote , deeply affected Longfellow personally but " seemed not to touch his poetry , at least directly " . His memorial poem to her , a sonnet called " The Cross of Snow " , was not published in his lifetime . 
