Is she not passing fair?

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act iv. Sc. 4.

A man he was to all the country dear,

And passing rich with forty pounds a year.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Deserted Village. Line 141.

And often did beguile her of her tears,

When I did speak of some distressful stroke

That my youth suffer'd. My story being done,

She gave me for my pains a world of sighs;

She swore, in faith, 't was strange, 't was passing strange.

'T was pitiful, 't was wondrous pitiful;

She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd

That Heaven had made her such a man; she thank'd me,

And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,

I should but teach him how to tell my story,

And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:

She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd,

And I loved her that she did pity them.

This only is the witchcraft I have used.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.

I praise the Frenchman, his remark was shrewd,—

How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!

But grant me still a friend in my retreat,

Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet.

William Cowper (1731-1800): Retirement. Line 739.

And like a passing thought, she fled

In light away.

Robert Burns (1759-1796): The Vision.

All that lives must die,

Passing through nature to eternity.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.

Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 20.

One fair daughter and no more,

The which he loved passing well.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.