Joseph Milton Hayes, known to the public as J. Milton Hayes, was born in Bristol on 13 January 1884 and died on 6 February 1940. During his lifetime he became one of the best-known writers of recitation verse in Britain, a poet whose work was heard as often as it was read. His celebrity rested especially on “The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God,” a narrative poem whose opening line, “There’s a one-eyed yellow idol…
“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.”
Neighbourhood:
Folk & Ballad Poets, Light Verse Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
Henry John Newbolt was born on 6 June 1862 at Bilston, Staffordshire, into a clerical and professional English family whose assumptions about duty, learning, faith, service, and social order would remain visible throughout his work. He became one of the most widely known poets of late Victorian and Edwardian Britain, celebrated above all for robust ballads of sailors, soldiers, schoolboys, explorers, and imperial end…
“The test of a poem is that it should be memorable.”
Neighbourhood:
Edwardian Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Wonder, Spirituality
