J Milton Hayes
1884-1940

Little is known about J Milton Hayes. A North County actor, he reputedly wrote his best-known poem, The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God in five hours, as material for the great Bransby Williams to use in his act.
An associate of Alec Waugh (Evelyn's brother) in the First World War, he was imprisoned in a German POW camp. Waugh quotes Hayes in his book My Brother Evelyn and Other Profiles:
"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."

Peter Kirkpatrick University of Western Sydney described the poem and the 'tradition' it would belong to in the following terms (August 2003):

'‘The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God’ by J. Milton Hayes... a ripping yarn of misguided British pluck and dastardly oriental vengeance. Poems like this were once very well known, so well known in fact, that they became objects of parody. The vaudeville comedian, Roy Rene, better known as Mo, used to perform a sketch in which he endeavoured to recite ‘The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God’, only to be constantly interrupted by hecklers dressed as ex-Indian Army officers planted in the audience. In frustration, Mo would explode with ‘Oh this is lovely! This is beautiful! A gentleman and a scholar can’t get up to resuscitate an immoral piece of poultry without being got at!'