| James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902. | | | | October 30 | | Nikolson’s Nek | | By Charles Edward Russell (1860–1941) |
| | Natal, Oct. 30, 1899
HO, ancient bully, beaten to your knees, | |
| Do you know her eyes that flame, her hands that smite? | |
| Whose wrathful face and wide smooth brows and white | |
| And dented shield from countless fields like these | |
| Gleamed fierce and fair among the rocks and trees | 5 |
| On Concord road? Who through the weary night | |
| Burned, though beclouded, till from Yorktown’s height | |
| She crowned a people with their liberties? | |
| Yea, fear her! This is she in whose sure scrolls | |
| Is writ, blood-red, the record of your crime— | 10 |
| By what wrecked nations and what wretched souls, | |
| What tears, what hate, what groveling and grime | |
| Your rising—and the very tide that rolls | |
| To hurl you headlong on the sands of Time! | | | | |
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