Poetry · Chapter
To a Debtor Abroad explained
The poem contrasts the fleeting grief of parting with a loved one against the enduring anguish of a creditor whose debtor has fled.
What happens
The poem contrasts the fleeting grief of parting with a loved one against the enduring anguish of a creditor whose debtor has fled. It imagines the debtor watching a ship at sea, comforted by the thought that a tear shed for them mingles with the waves and winds to aid the vessel's journey.
Themes in this chapter
Deception and Self-Deception
The debtor's flight and the creditor's imagined comfort involve self-deception about the nature of the separation.
Love and Communication
The poem explores the idea of a tear and sigh as messages of love carried by natural elements to the absent debtor.
Key passages
“Grief for an absent lover, husband, friend, Is barely felt before it comes to end: A score of early consolations serve To modify its mouth’s dejected curve.”
The sorrow of missing a loved one is short-lived, quickly softened by many comforts.
Contrasts personal grief with the lasting pain of a creditor.
“But woes of creditors when debtors flee Forever swell the separating sea.”
The distress of a creditor whose debtor has run away is endless, like an ever-growing ocean between them.
Central metaphor of the poem: the sea as a symbol of unending separation.
“How sweet to think a tear for you abides, Not all unuseful, in the wave she rides!— That sighs for you commingle in the gale Beneficently bellying her sail!”
It is comforting to imagine that a tear shed for you is carried in the ship's wave, and that sighs for you join the wind to help fill her sails.
The debtor finds solace in the idea that the creditor's grief aids their escape.