Selected Poems

Arthur Hugh Clough was born on the first day of 1819 to James and Ann Clough in Liverpool, England. A poet who studied at Rugby and Oxford, Clough had radical political and religious beliefs. After going to France to support the revolution of 1848, Clough traveled to the United States hoping to obtain a position at Harvard. When that did not work out, Clough returned home and married Blanch Smith. Soon after, Clough spent much of his time helping his wife's cousin, Florence Nightingale, lobby for reform in hospitals and in the nursing profession. Throughout the 1850s, Clough worked on a translation of Plutarch's Lives and a large poem, Mari Magno. Clough died in Florence, Italy, on November 13, 1861, at the age of 42.