# To a Debtor Abroad explained — Poetry

> Chapter companion for Poetry by Ambrose Bierce.

## 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 lines

> 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._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_se/chapters/to-a-debtor-abroad
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_se/chapters