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- I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
- I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
- I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
- From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
- I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
- I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
- About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news,
- With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.
- I'm very good at integral and differential calculus;
- I know the scientific names of beings animalculous:
- In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
- I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
- I know our mythic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's;
- I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox,
- I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,
- In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous;
- I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies,
- I know the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes!
- Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore,
- And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.
- Then I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform,
- And tell you ev'ry detail of Caractacus's uniform:
- In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
- I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
- In fact, when I know what is meant by "mamelon" and "ravelin",
- When I can tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a Javelin,
- When such affairs as sorties and surprises I'm more wary at,
- And when I know precisely what is meant by "commissariat",
- When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,
- When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery—
- In short, when I've a smattering of elemental strategy—
- You'll say a better Major-General has never sat a gee.
- For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
- Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
- But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
- I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
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