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;
    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 [bad word] 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:
    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,
    When such affairs as sorties and surprises I'm more wary at,
    And when I know precisely what is meant by [bad word] ,
    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.

    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.