Читать книгу Songs of a Savoyard - William Schwenck Gilbert - Страница 8

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 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 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 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!