Lines in books that make your throat catch

[pongping]

Just been re-reading When We Were Very Young, and the lines in the last poem, Vespers, bring a tear to my eye every time:

Hush, hush, whisper who dares,
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers

I'm not sure why - I think it's the beauty of the innocence, the image of a lost world (the book is all nurses and stockings)?

In fact, just the title of the collection gives me a shiver.

[Xmasbaby11]

Peepo. Pretty much the whole book but especially the soap in a cup. It's so nostalgic and makes me think of my grandparents, who are dead, and reminds me that no one lives forever.

[Bloodybridget]

Fear no more the heat o' the sun
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Song from Shakespeare's Cymbeline.

[Marcipex]

Oh yes blueshoes

Also

You never shall see herald more.
Henry V

[blueshoes]

"Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. ”

William Shakespeare, Hamlet

[FurryLittleTwerp]

"Once There Were Giants" - a PP mentioned it above. About a baby girl growing up & eventually becoming a mother herself.

The lovely illustrations show her parents & siblings ageing, & in the end she becomes the "giant" - I just couldn't read it out loud at bedtime for choking up & blubbing

[Acornantics]

Favourite thread ever sobs.

[KERALA1]

From a little book called Bridge of San Luis Ray by Thornton Wilder don't know why I read it but the last paragraph stopped me in my tracks. Its about a bridge that collapsed killing 5 people and the effects of that. Next heard it when Tony Blair read it at the funeral of the English 9/11 victims, so not the only one to find it affecting.

"But soon we will die, and all memories of those five will have left earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love. The only survival, the only meaning."

[Marcipex]

God is Love, so Master says
And dog is love, in dogs own way.
Were the walls of alabaster
Soundproof when I greeted Master?
I can't believe God never listened,
Just because I wasn't christened.

[JaneJeffer]

I love this from North and South.

While she sought for this paper, her very heart-pulse was arrested by the tone in which Mr. Thornton spoke. His voice was hoarse, and trembling with tender passion, as he said:--
'Margaret!' For an instant she looked up; and then sought to veil her luminous eyes by dropping her forehead on her hands. Again, stepping nearer, he besought her with another tremulous eager call upon her name.
'Margaret!' Still lower went the head; more closely hidden was the face, almost resting on the table before her. He came close to her. He knelt by her side, to bring his face to a level with her ear; and whispered-panted out the words:--
'Take care.If you do not speakI shall claim you as my own in some strange presumptuous way.Send me away at once, if I must go;Margaret!--' At that third call she turned her face, still covered with her small white hands, towards him, and laid it on his shoulder, hiding it even there; and it was too delicious to feel her softcheek against his, for him to wish to see either deep blushes or loving eyes. He clasped her close.

[hagsrus0]

Leaves of heartbreak gold,
(Grass by Sheri Tepper)

And always "my Daddy" after all these years...

[ilovepixie]

Oh yes the railway children too.
Daddy my daddy 😢😢

[ilovepixie]

Dean koontz watchers. Fiddle broke! Gets me every time!

[orozing]

"Stephen remained as always, though barely consciously, on the watch for children, for a five year old girl. It was more than a habit, for a habit could be broken. It was a deep disposition, the outline experienced had stencilled on character.

It was not principally a search, though it had once been an obsessive hunt, for a long time too. Two years on, only vestiges of that remained; now it was a longing, a dry hunger.

There was a biological clock, dispassionate in its unstoppability, which made his daughter carry on growing, extended and complicated her simple vocabulary, made her stronger, her movements surer... she would be drawing, she would be starting to read, she would be losing a milk tooth. She would be familiar, taken for granted.

It seemed as though the proliferating instances might wear down the frail, semi-opaque screen whose tissues of time and chance separated her from him...

Any five year old girl - though boys would do - gave substance to her continued existence. He could not fail to watch out for Kate in other children or fail to feel the untapped potency of weeks and months, the time that should have been hers. Kate's phantom growth, the product of an obsessive sorrow, was not only inevitable , but necessary. Without the fantasy of her continued existence, he was lost. Time would stop.

He was the father of an invisible child."

Ian Mc Ewan, The Child in Time

[Allthatnonsense]

My Henry by Judith Kerr

The bit where they reminisce about their happy life together kills me every time.

[chanelfreak]

Sincere condolences to thos of you that have lost loved ones

The animal ones just kill me, especially Lee and Hester in His Dark Materials - I got to that part late one night and I cried so much that I woke DH up and then vomited from the sobbing. Was vay hormonal at the time, but still.

Also, Manchee in the Patrick Ness book, I read that when I was having chemo and was so mad I tweeted him in a rage, the poor man tweeted me back too apologising heh heh.

Love this thread, but have had to pretend that I have severe hayfever today to account for the watery eyes.

[FatherHenderson]

"Mercy"
In Under the Skin.

Blew me away. I had to put the book down and walk round the room.

[fallingoffthetoast]

slithytove so sorry to hear about your baby daughter (hug). I've cried myself through much of this thread but I've found comfort in others thoughts/posts.

[slithytove]

It's taken me all these months to finish reading this thread.

How can words cause such a huge emotional reaction, so strong that it actually gives pain?

I lost a baby girl and some of these words are so poignant. Add to that the fear of losing one of my other two children, the knowledge that I will one day lose my parents, the bittersweet hope that my children will grow up but with that will grow away from me.

I'm a mess. No one should have to lose a child. It feels like the worst cruelty.

[KittyandTeal]

Oh and paper dolls gets me, when the dolls are cut up and float into the little girls memory.

Was bought for my dd1 when we lost dd2, she doesn't understand as she is only 2.6yo. I can just about get through it without sobbing now.

[KittyandTeal]

No matter what was read at my dd2s service and we have the last line on her plaque.

Love, like starlight, never dies.

[Stitchintime1]

There are parts of 'Adam Bede' that give me the shakes even when I just remember reading them. When Hetty confesses and when the pardon comes. I can't even type them out.

[Stitchintime1]

skittish heels. Can't type today.

[Stitchintime1]

"You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope." Wentworth in 'Persuasion.'
"Daddy, my daddy."
"I have danced at your skitting heels, my beautiful Bathsheba..."

[aliasjoey]

Some years ago DH and I split up for a few months. I felt horribly guilty at the damage this might cause to the kids, and this Elvis song had me bawling!

Don't cry, daddy
Daddy, please don't cry
Daddy, you've still got me and little Tommy
And together we'll find a brand new mommy
Daddy, daddy, please laugh again
Daddy, ride us on your back again
Oh, daddy
Please
Don't cry

Why are children always first
To feel the pain and the hurt the worst
It's true but somehow
It just don't seem right

[Passmethecrisps]

That is the one I mean slithy.

I remember being taught that at school and just being a bit confused by it.

Now, reading it through, I am sure that I was right when I though that English was not the subject I should teach. I would have been hopeless trying to read that