In a Dispensary is a poem written by Agatha Christie. It was published in the collection The Road of Dreams in 1925. When the poems from the collection were republished in Poems in 1973, for some reason Dispensary was omitted. When HarperCollins issued its 2009 edition of Star Over Bethlehem and other stories which included the poems of Road of Dreams and Poems, Dispensary continued to be left out. The poem would not be republished until 2014 when HarperCollins issued its 50th anniversary edition of Star Over Bethlehem and other stories.
The poem comprises 5 stanzas in which Christie muses over the contents of a dispensary, suggesting that the poem was written while she worked as a dispenser in a hospital in Torquay. She begins with
"Oh!, who shall say where Romance is, if Romance is not here?
For here are Colour, Death and Sleep and Magic everywhere!
She marvels over the many tinctures, syrups, "Glistening salts, and shimmering scales, and crystals of purest white" and spiced oils. Singled out for mention are Quinine, Iodine, and spiced oils of "Lavender, Nutmeg and Sandalwood; Cinnamon, Clove and Pine,/While above, in palest primrose hue, the Flowers of Sulphur shine."
Of the poisons which she would deployed later in her stories, only two are mentioned, aconite and cyanide, of which she says:
Here is sleep and solace and soothing of pain – courage and vigour new:
Here is menace and murder and sudden death – in these phials of green and blue:
She ends on a whimsical note:
"Beware of the Powers that never die, though Men may go their way,
The Power of the Drug, for good or ill, shall it ever pass away?