Arthur Hugh Clough was born in 1819 in Liverpool. Though his family relocated to the United States in 1822, he returned to England in 1828 for schooling. He attended Rugby School, where he published writing in the school’s magazine, and earned a scholarship to Balliol College at Oxford. Naturally curious, inquisitive, and critical of the world’s structures and traditions, he was given a teaching position at Oxford’s Oriel College after his graduation, but his disaffection with the Church of England led him to depart in 1848.
Clough’s wanderlust saw him travel to Paris that year, where he witnessed the 1848 Revolution alongside Ralph Waldo Emerson, whom he befriended. He continued to compose poetry as he traveled through Europe, including his well-known books The Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich, Amours de Voyage, and Easter Day. In 1853, he married Blanche Mary Shore Smith, cousin of Florence Nightingale, with whom he had three children. For several years his poetry faded into the background as he worked as Nightingale’s volunteer secretary. Clough’s passion for exploration saw him traveling extensively even as his health faded, and he came out with one last burst of poetry before dying in Florence in 1861. Most of his poems were published posthumously.