The Major General

    from Pirates of Penzance

    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 interesting 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 out mythic history -- KING ARTHUR'S and SIR CARADOC'S,
    I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox;
    I quote in elegaics all the crimes of HELIOGABALUS,
    In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous.
    I 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 'revelin,'
    When I can tell at sight a Cassepôt 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 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.

        W.S. Gilbert