A Footnote to Pascal
"Yes; but you must wager. It is not
optional."
Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 233.
My sister went on a pilgrimage;
I went to the races.
We both came home with beatific
Smiles upon our faces.
When she set out on her stony way;
The path was perilous and hard.
I too started off dubious,
With not a cert upon my card.
For many intense and painful hours
She was bent beneath spiritual trouble;
I too was much assailed by doubt -
And I lost on a risky double.
She sank into a spiritual gloom,
Despair unyielding and intense,
Like me when I backed the favourite,
Who fell at the fourteenth fence.
But through prayer she achieved a vision,
A sense of what God’s plan might mean.
A bloke in a pub gave me a tip:
Likely Lad in the four-fifteen.
She sensed the numinous promise
Of the glory that was God’s.
I put forty quid on Likely Lad
At most inviting odds.
A spiritual love filled her with joy,
Intense as any noonday sun.
Likely Lad came roaring home
At seventeen to one.
After all her prayer and fasting,
She was radiant but thinner.
I’d my wodge of winnings and took her out
For a really slap-up dinner.
George Simmers
If you have any thoughts about this
poem, George
Simmers would like to hear them
