The
personifications whom the poet meets on the way to the religious orgy
are Superstition, Hypocrisy, and Fun, and symbolize exactly the
elements in his treatment--two-thirds satire and one-third humorous
sympathy. The handling of the preachers is in the manner we have
already observed in the other ecclesiastical satires, but there is
less animus and more vividness. Nothing could be more admirable in its
way than the realism of the picture of the congregation, whether at
the sermons or at their refreshments; and, as in _Halloween_, the
union of the particular and the universal appears in the essential
applicability of the psychology to an American camp-meeting as well as
to a Scottish sacrament--
There's some are fou o' love divine,
There's some are fou o' brandy.
--not to finish the stanza!
THE HOLY FAIR
_A robe of seeming truth and trust
Hid crafty Observation;
And secret hung, with poison'd crust,
The dirk of Defamation:
A mask that like the gorget show'd,
Dye-varying on the pigeon;
And for a mantle large and broad,
He wrapt him in religion._
HYPOCRISY A LA MODE.
Upon a simmer Sunday morn,
When Nature's face is fair,
I walked forth to view the corn,
An' snuff the caller air. [fresh]
The risin' sun, owre Galston muirs,
Wi' glorious light was glintin';
The hares were hirplin' down the furrs, [limping, furrows]
The lav'rocks they were chantin' [larks]
Fu' sweet that day.
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