A Passing

A Passing is a poem written by Agatha Christie. It was first published in Poetry of Today vol. 1 no. 6, Nov-Dec 1919, and later in the book The Road of Dreams in 1924.

The poem is about the passage of life but it does not appear that she is thinking about any specific person who has died. It is a 13 line verse. The first 6 comprise rhyming couplets in which Christie compares death to the various transient events in life such as the gathering of the sheaves at harvert or the ebbing of the seas. But she goes on to suggest that there is also, perhaps, "prison bars that fall" and "New destiny to shape". Is it just death or an escape?