I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General (from "The Pirates Of Penzance")

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 a

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：c

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 d

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 e

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