John Milton Hayes

John Milton Hayes Poems

There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
There's a little marble cross below the town;
There's a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God forever gazes down.
...

YOU can keep your antique silver and your statuettes of bronze,
Your curios and tapestries so fine,
But of all your treasures rare there is nothing to compare
With this patched up, wornout football pal o’ mine.
...

THE MERCHANT Abu Khan shunned the customs of his race,
And sought the cultured wisdom of the West.
His daughter fair Leola had the desert’s supple grace,
With an English education of the best.
...

THE COLONEL stopped, and glared around,
Then, pointing sternly to the ground,
‘What does this mean?’ demanded he,
‘A piece of orange peel I see!’
...

HE’S acruisin’ in a pearler with a dirty nigger crew,
Abuyin’ pearls and copra for a stingy Spanish Jew,
And his face is tann’d like leather ’neath a blazin’ tropic Sun,
And he’s workin’ out a penance for the things he hasn’t done.
...

I’VE noticed this happen, when everything is black,
When I’m down below zero and cannot get back,
When I feel like a sort of a National Debt,
That will go on for ages and never be met,
...

MERCHANDISE! Merchandise! Tortoiseshell, spices,
Carpets and Indigo sent o’er the highseas;
Mothero’Pearl from the Solomon Isles
Brought by a brigantine ten thousand miles.
...

John Milton Hayes Biography

John Milton Hayes, better known as J. Milton Hayes, was an English actor and poet, best known for his 1911 dramatic monologue The Green Eye of the Yellow God, much parodied by his contemporary Stanley Holloway and later by The Goon Show. He also wrote and performed many other monologues. Curiously little is known about Hayes, save that he was from the north of England (probably Lancashire) and that he knew Alec Waugh when the two were prisoners of war together in Mainz, Germany in 1918. From the fact that he was accommodated alongside Waugh at Mainz, we may assume that Hayes served as an officer in the First World War. In his book My Brother Evelyn and Other Profiles Waugh describes Hayes as 'A North Country man; he was nearly forty; he was brisk, assured, purposeful, with his eye on the main chance. He was the first person I heard analyse success. He gives Hayes's account of the writing of the poem: I wrote The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God in five hours, but I had it all planned out. It isn't poetry and it does not pretend to be, but it does what it sets out to do. It appeals to the imagination from the start: those colours, green and yellow, create an atmosphere. Then India, everyone has his own idea of India. Don't tell the public too much. Strike chords. It is no use describing a house; the reader will fix the scene in some spot he knows himself. All you've got to say is 'India' and a man sees something. Then play on his susceptibilities. His name was Mad Carew. You've got the whole man there. The public will fill in the picture for you. And then the mystery. Leave enough unsaid to make paterfamilias pat himself on the back. 'I've spotted it, he can't fool me. I'm up to that dodge. I know where he went.' No need to explain. Then that final ending where you began. It carries people back. You've got a compact whole. 'A broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew' They'll weave a whole story round that woman's life. Every man's a novelist at heart. We all tell ourselves stories. That's what you've got to play on. )

The Best Poem Of John Milton Hayes

The Green Eye Of The Little Yellow God

There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
There's a little marble cross below the town;
There's a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God forever gazes down.

He was known as "Mad Carew" by the subs at Khatmandu,
He was hotter than they felt inclined to tell;
But for all his foolish pranks, he was worshipped in the ranks,
And the Colonel's daughter smiled on him as well.

He had loved her all along, with a passion of the strong,
The fact that she loved him was plain to all.
She was nearly twenty-one and arrangements had begun
To celebrate her birthday with a ball.

He wrote to ask what present she would like from Mad Carew;
They met next day as he dismissed a squad;
And jestingly she told him then that nothing else would do
But the green eye of the little Yellow God.

On the night before the dance, Mad Carew seemed in a trance,
And they chaffed him as they puffed at their cigars:
But for once he failed to smile, and he sat alone awhile,
Then went out into the night beneath the stars.

He returned before the dawn, with his shirt and tunic torn,
And a gash across his temple dripping red;
He was patched up right away, and he slept through all the day,
And the Colonel's daughter watched beside his bed.

He woke at last and asked if they could send his tunic through;
She brought it, and he thanked her with a nod;
He bade her search the pocket saying "That's from Mad Carew,"
And she found the little green eye of the god.

She upbraided poor Carew in the way that women do,
Though both her eyes were strangely hot and wet;
But she wouldn't take the stone and Mad Carew was left alone
With the jewel that he'd chanced his life to get.

When the ball was at its height, on that still and tropic night,
She thought of him and hurried to his room;
As she crossed the barrack square she could hear the dreamy air
Of a waltz tune softly stealing thro' the gloom.

His door was open wide, with silver moonlight shining through;
The place was wet and slipp'ry where she trod;
An ugly knife lay buried in the heart of Mad Carew,
'Twas the "Vengeance of the Little Yellow God."

There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
There's a little marble cross below the town;
There's a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God forever gazes down.

John Milton Hayes Comments

Madeleine Smith 10 September 2019

My Dad used to recite this to us, his children, many years ago. Because he was also always reciting poems by Rudyard Kipling, I always thought it was written by Kipling. My late apologies to John Milton Hayes, who must also now be ‘the late...’. The rhythm is very like Kipling’s.

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Peter Miller 03 January 2007

There is more known about Milton Hayes than I have found on any internet site. It stated somewhere that he was born 'probably in Lancashire'. In fact he came from Manchester. He served in the First World War and was awarded the Military Cross. Two poems well worth adding to any anthology are 'Let Me Awake', written under fire in the trenches, and 'Orders' written in 1936. Many references get the title of 'The Green Eye of the Yellow God' wrong - there is no 'Little' in the title. Hayes was also a comedian and made a series of recordings in the 1920's entitled 'The Meanderings of Monty'. One of these has 'You know what I mean? ' on the reverse. Amongst those who parodied his verse was Billy Bennet with 'The Green Tie on the Little Yellow Dog' and 'The Tightest Man I know' Hayes retired from the stage in about 1928 and wrote a number of articles for the 'Manchester Guardian' in the 1930's. He died in the South of France (I THINK in Marseille) and is buried there. I can provide copies of 'Orders' and 'Let me Awake', but only by post. I haven't yet mastered the scanner! Peter Miller

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