For rigorous teachers seized my youth, And purged its faith, and trimm'd its fire, Show'd me the high, white star of Truth, There bade me gaze, and there aspire. Even now their whispers pierce the gloom: What dost thou in this living tomb?

He was the son of Thomas Arnold the famed headmaster of Rugby School and brother to both Tom Arnold literary professor and William Delafield Arnold novelist and colonial administrator. Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools.