User:Chzz/mg


 * 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

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 * 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&mdash;
 * In short, when I've a smattering of elemental strategy&mdash;
 * 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.


 * Major-General's Song