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