The One-eyed Yellow Idol

I stopped off in Kathmandu for a few days on my way back from my recent trip to Tibet, the first time I’ve been in the city for years. How things have changed? So many of the beautiful old houses have been torn down and replaced by cement blocks. There used to be farm houses and fields between Bodhinath and the city now its built up all the way. Anyway, my brief stay reminded me of J. Milton Hayes quaint old poem about Kathmandu which my mum used to recite to me with appropriate dramatic facial expressions and hand gestures.

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.