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Title: The Modern Major-General
Author: W. S. Gilbert [
More Titles by Gilbert]
I am the very pattern of a modern Major-Gineral.
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-Gineral.
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 conies 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 confounded nonsense "Pinafore."
Then I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform,
And tell you every detail of Caractacus's uniform.
In short in matters vegetable, animal and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-Gineral.
In fact when I know what is meant by "mamelon" and "ravelin,"
When I can tell at sight a Chassepot 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 learn 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 elementary 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 learning vegetable, animal and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-Gineral.
[The end]
W. S. Gilbert's poem: Modern Major-General
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