Читать книгу Songs of a Savoyard - William Schwenck Gilbert - Страница 10

​

THE MODERN MAJOR-GENERAL.

Table of Contents

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 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-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 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 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 Chassepôt 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!