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.

Haven't read the whole thread here but for me virtually every other line in 'the little prince' by Antoine de saint exupery is a heartbreaker.

In Homer's Iliad, when Achilles loses his best friend (and implied lover) Patroklos due to his own foolish pride, he throws himself to the ground and weeps with remorse.

He is "huge and hugely fallen" - just a shatteringly beautiful line.

I heard 'Beatrix is 3' on Poetry Please, and was completely undone. I have howled my way through this whole thread, when I should be packing to go away. Have also answered the door to the postie while trying to pretend I wasn't mid sob.

Jane I have that Adrian Mitchell poem in his compilation 'For Beauty Douglas' and read it as a teenager. I love his work so much.

Mum Would it offer some consolation that maybe your son was consoled by the thought of being freed from his emotional pain? That is what I try to hold onto whenever i think of the patients our service has lost to suicide. i have lost a few of my patients over 28 years and i think of them all, all the time. We do not forget your children, either.

Oh man! Sobbing here!

So sorry for all of the losses that I have read about in this tread x

Mumof2teenboys I am so sorry for your loss.

Its not from a book, I have a few of those, but I think I would dissolve if I typed them out. For me, the lyrics to Kate Bush's "The man with the child in his eyes" mean so much more than just a song. They remind me of someone I have lost, and how I'd love to listen to him talking, just one more time. I wish I'd listened more when I had the chance.

I hear him,
Before I go to sleep,
And focus on the day that's been,
I realize he's there,
When I turn the light off,
And turn over,
Nobody knows about my man,
They think he's lost on some horizon,
And suddenly I find myself listening,
To a man I've never known before,
Telling me about the sea,
Oh his love is to eternity

DisgraceToTheYChromosome Thank you for the Dog Paradox, that sums up our dog exactly!

But "He is my best friend, and I am his, but he will go to his grave never having known my name" ....

.... this isn't true! our dog knows our names, and so does the Paradox Dog know his owner's name - look at frame 6

Now I am Ten by Billy Collins. That poem is about ten year olds losing their fantasies and always makes me cry.

Had I the heavens? embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away - until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone's life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence.

It's a Discworld quote, and I absolutely love the idea of people 'carrying on'.

Oh Tartan and Mumoftwoteenageboys.... my heart goes out to you both.

It's actually called On Turning Ten by Billy Collins.

I looked it up to check the title and it made me cry again.

So many losses. for you all.

And thank you for reminding me of Beatrix is Three; I'd forgotten all about it. In fact, I've been reminded of lots of old favourites and introduced to quite a few new ones.

My dad used to read this to us, sometimes. It always chokes me up.

mumof2 I totally understand that touching the last thing he held is so important to you. I wish I could say something to ease your pain, I really do.

Sometimes I wear my mums horrible old dog walking fleece because I could still smell her perfume on it but after 3 years it's started to fade which I hate.

Doesn't count exactly as it's a song lyric, but:
"Ah but it's all right, it's all right,
You can't be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow's going to be another working day
And I'm trying to get some rest"

American Tune by Paul Simon. I can't hear it without crying - the sense of loss and resignation is so powerful.
Tinged a bit with my own memories of going to work after my mum died - those lines encompass the sense of having to carry on even though you want the world to stop.

The last few lines of Song of Myself by Walt Whitman, which I think are a lovely way of thinking about death for any atheists. The last line gets me every time.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love
If you want me again, look for me under your boot soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged
Missing me one place, seek another
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

Tartan

When he died, all his clothes came back home to us. His little cat came to live as well. She was so unsettled that I put one of his unwashed shirts in her bed so at least she had something from home.

It is still in her bed, but smells more like here now. That made me cry the other week, its like he is fading somehow.

If we are talking Paul Simon (and Garfunkel) then they have lots of lyrics that make me catch my breath.

I love The Boxer and the lyrics to that "Now the years are rolling by me, they are rocking evenly and I am older than I once was, and younger than I'll be, that's not unusual. No it isn't strange, after changes upon changes we are more or less the same, after changes, we are more or less the same."

I don't know why but those lines make me stop and listen every time, I love them.

Mignonette there's a beautiful choral setting in 16 parts of that John Donne verse, by Harris (I think)- I used to sing it with my old choir and I always thought I'd like it to be sing at my funeral.

mumof2 he'll never fade to you love. X

I asked for this thread to move to Classics, and RowanMNHQ replied that they'll keep it in Chat for a couple more weeks for traffic, and then move it to Classics.

Thanks Rowan.