The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God by J.Milton Hayes
Saturday 19th May 1945
We continue North today. The wind is behind us and pushing but there is a good sea and the ships are tossing about. We see the ship’s Concert Party. It’s quite good in particular ‘The Green Eye of The Little Yellow God’. We now know we are going to the Clyde on Tuesday.
he Green Eye of the Yellow God is a 1911 poem by J. Milton Hayes that is a famous example of the genre of “dramatic monologue”, which was a music hall staple in the early twentieth century.
The poem is influenced by the ballads of Rudyard Kipling and was often parodied, most famously by Billy Bennett as The Green Tie on the Little Yellow Dog
The opening lines are still very well known:
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.
It is set in Nepal to the north of” Kathmandu and tells the tale of a wild young officer known as “Mad Carew”, who steals the “green eye” of a “yellow god” (presumably an emerald in a gold statue) in order to impress his beloved. He is wounded in the course of the robbery, and later murdered, presumably by a devotee of the god for the theft, who returns the jewel to the idol.