Forgotten poets of a bygone age - Arthur Hugh Clough
Arthur Hugh Clough was an English Victorian poet born in 1819. He attended the prestigious Rugby School of Tom Brown’s Schooldays fame, where he excelled academically and athletically under the notorious headmaster Thomas Arnold, forming a lasting admiration for Arnold’s ideas.
Clough then studied at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1841. He became a fellow of Oriel College but resigned his position in 1848 due to his inability to subscribe to the Church of England’s Thirty-nine Articles amid growing religious scepticism.
Apart from his poetry he is best known for being amanuensis, confidante and general support to Florence Nightingale.
In 1854 he married Blanche Mary Shore Smith. Health issues, including recurrent depression and physical decline, led him to seek recovery in warmer climates. He died of consumption in Florence, Italy, at age 42 and is buried in the English Cemetery there.
His poetry is often aimed at bigotry and hypocrisy. Although ‘The Latest Decalogue’ is probably the best known I like ‘Spectator ab Extra’.
As I sat in the Café I said to myself, They may talk as they please about what they call pelf, They may sneer as they like about eating and drinking, But help it I cannot, I cannot help thinking How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho! How pleasant it is to have money.
I sit at my table en grand seigneur, And when I have done, throw a crust to the poor; Not only the pleasure itself of good living, But also the pleasure of now and then giving: So pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho! So pleasant it is to have money.
They may talk as they please about what they call pelf, And how one ought never to think of one’s self, How pleasures of thought surpass eating and drinking— My pleasure of thought is the pleasure of thinking How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho! How pleasant it is to have money.
‘Pelf’ is one of those words which has gone out of fashion. It means a stack of money that you don’t deserve and don’t put to good use.
