This poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar is from “Lyrics of Love and Laughter” (1913).
The Debt
This is the debt I pay
Just for one riotous day,
Years of regret and grief,
Sorrow without relief.Pay it I will to the end —
Until the grave, my friend,
Gives me a true release —
Gives me the clasp of peace.Slight was the thing I bought,
Small was the debt I thought,
Poor was the loan at best —
God! but the interest!
That’s a good description of debt and its aftermath. A small amount of “riotous” spending followed by many years, perhaps a lifetime, of regret. As many have said, compound interest is a powerful thing.
I think “the debt” that is the subject of Dunbar’s poem is actually of a non-financial nature. Perhaps a mistake of some kind, an accident, an unkindness, a word spoken in anger, something that seemed small at the time it occurred, but had consequences that were unforeseen and long-lasting.
That’s part of the power of literature; we are free to make of it what we will, interpreting it according to our experiences and circumstances. If Dunbar’s debt has nothing to do with money, if it’s any of the countless things that we might do and then regret, then it’s interesting that Dunbar uses a personal finance topic — debt — as a metaphor. He could have used anything. A metaphor only makes sense because it’s obvious to everyone. You can only say X is as bad as Y if everyone understands that Y is really awful. So Dunbar must have thought that debt is a bad thing and he must have been sure that most people would agree with him. Let’s go with that.
“The Debt” was written by 1913. That makes me wonder if debt was more often seen as a bad thing a century ago than it is today. Do we think paying interest, maybe for our entire lives, is the normal way to live?
