BOWRING

The poem reads:The evening sun's decliningOn Darro's gloomy waveAnd freedom's soul is diningUpon our Country's graveO no! The dawn is shiningAwake! Awake ye brave.The Torch of heav'n is lightedThe flame our guide shall beTo glory's strife invitedO're Forest, Field, and SeaAnd every bosom plightedOh liberty! to thee.The glorious freedom - givenThy plains Iberia! fillsFor deams the GuadalquivirMorena, for the hillsAnd every rock and river With pardon's spirit thrillsIt burst the slavish tethersWhich held it chain'd so longWe call upon our fathersAnd freedon, bold and strongIts mighty tide upgathersIn all the power of songA great linguist, Bowring professed to know 200 languages and able to speak 100 fluently, classing him as one of the world's greatest Hyperglots. His study of European Folk Songs were published along with his Hymns early on in his career. His Ancient Poetry and Romances of Spain published in 1824, has echoes of Felicia Dorothea Hemans and Washington Irving's Alhambra 1832. The verses here appear not to have been published, but from their date were written during the First Carlist or Civil War (1833-39), refer to that conflict.Bowring had a long and varied career. He is well known for his travels in the Far East as a diplomat, and his appointment as plenipotentiary to China and Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Hong Kong. His handling of hostilities with the Chinese in 1856, which contributed to the Second Opium War, withstood a vote of Censure with Palmerston's support.