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.

All of 'For Adrian' by Derek Walcott, but this bit especially:

I am a child, listen,
I did not invite or invent angels. It is easy

to be an angel, to speak now beyond my eight years,
to have more vestal authority, and to know,

because I have now entered a wisdom, not a silence.
Why do you miss me? I am not missing you, sisters,

neither Judith, whose hair will banner like the leopard's
in the pride of her young bearing, nor Katryn, not Gem

sitting in a corner of her pain, nor my aunt, the one
with the soft eyes that have soothed the one who writes this,

I would not break your heart, and you should know it;
I would not make you suffer, and you should know it;

and I am not suffering, but it is hard to know it.

Peepo makes me sad too, but for something DS said about it.

We got to the part where the baby sees his sisters searching for a jar or tin and DS said "I wish I had sisters" and I said "Do you? Why?" and he said "So I would have somebody."

That brought more than one tear to my eyes. Having lost the two babies before having him and being told that further pregnancies and births will only get more difficult, sisters are something he's never going to have.

WhitePeacock I like the Ted Hughes quote of yours. I've never heard it before. I like the idea of the pool of atoms and it's reminded me of a bit of Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy, where two of the characters discuss death and one says something along the lines of that when she is just atoms/dust, her atoms will seek out his atoms and they will be together.

I like that idea. Bill Bryson wrote about it in his Brief History of Everything:

?Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numberous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms-up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested-probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more each came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name.?

I find comfort in this. One day, one of my atoms might find one from each of my children, and together we might be part of a completely new person, or even a billion new people. That's comforting, I think, and pretty amazing as well (so don't anyone more science-y tell me different okay )

The end of the time travellers wide. mynameisnotmichaelcaine I know how you felt - I was really really down for about a week after finishing reading it! I loved the book, have read it twice (the first time I cried but the second time affected me so much more). I'm not sure I'll read it again, I don't think I can cope with it!

I came close to tears reading the title of this thread that brought it to mind

And Bella and her kindness in Dogger... I haven't read the book in decades, can't even remember what its about really, certainly not how the story goes, but I remember crying at that line!

this is a song lyric (Paul Simon) rather than a book but I had never heard it before today when someone posted it on FB and something about it really got me.

They say the left side of the brain
Dominates the right
And the right side has to labor
Through the long and speechless night
And in the night
My father came to me
And held me to his chest
He said there's not much more that you can do
Go on and get some rest

I read this the other day:

Lodged by Robert Frost

The rain to the wind said,
'You push and I'll pelt.'
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged--though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.

...it sums up ho I was feeling a few years ago, (thankfully it was worth the while to keep going, life is a lot better now).

not a book, but my favourite Christmas carol, The Coventry Carol, about what happens following the birth of Jesus:

Lully lullae, thou little tiny child
by by lully lullay

O sisters too, how may we do
For to preserve this day
This poor youngling
For whom we do sing
by by lully lullay

Herod the King, in his raging
Charged he hath this day
His men of might
In his own sight
All young children to slay

That woe is me, poor child for thee!
And ever mourn and day
For thy parting
Neither say nor sing
by by lully lullay

a beautiful tune too.

Spiderlight I have read the whole thread with many catches and tears-memories of old favourites and promises of new but your post about your little boy is the one that broke me.

I hope this still counts, although it isn't from a book. Two lines of the most spartan, restrained but devastatingly poignant and fitting prose.

The Devonshire Regiments were among the many sacrificed to the theatre of war on the Somme during World War I. They suffered terrible loss of life; 462 dead or wounded out of 775 who fought. Their bodies remained lost in No Man's Land, almost close enough to touch but beyond reach. Three days after the attack the Germans were forced back, and the Devons were finally able to collect their dead. There were too many to bury so a mass grave was fashioned out of the support line trench from where they went over the top. A wooden plaque was set up reading The Devonshires held this trench. The Devonshires hold it still.

I haven't had time to read the whole thread, but hearing Martin Luther Kings, "I have a dream" speech yesterday a few times brought a tear to my eye as I explained its meaning to my dds.

Captain Wentworth

I have found the Harris setting of The Prayer of John Donne

Thank you for that. And I am an atheist! But it is such beautiful language sung by glorious voices.

A friend gave me this some years ago when I was going through a very hard time, made me feel stronger and to keep going no matter what.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

Gosh - this thread is a treasure trove! Thank you all...

My weak point is the end of 'On the Day you were Born'. We have the version that you put photos in. Very sadly, DH lost his whole family in an accident when he was a child. He grew up with his grandparents, and by the time we were married his only close living relative was his grandmother who was in her 90s and pretty frail. She had been a source of strength and comfort for my husband whilst he grew up, even though she had her own grief to deal with.

I became pregnant soon after we married, and his grandmother, who was very ill by this point, told us she would hang on to meet the baby. The day after DD was born, we dashed up to the nursing home, and grandmother held her for 2 hours. It such a sad and happy day - we all knew that now DH had his own family, his grandmother would be at peace and feel her job was done. She died two days later.

On the last page of 'On the Day you were Born' we have a picture of Grandmother holding DD. And it says, 'And as they held you close, they whispered into your open curving ear... "We're so glad you came..." '

Gosh, it's so true... but it makes me cry every time.

Someone has already put in a great Pratchett qoute - this one always givesme goosebumps.

All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little?"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET?Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point?"

MY POINT EXACTLY.?
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

Call the midwife, the chapter about Mrs Jenkins going into the workhouse always gets me. Its the but about her staying awake all night holding her babies as she knew it would be the last night they would have together ??

Rainy That really is amazing.

Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.

You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.

He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.

I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call.

Wotnots one of my favourite poems.

Off topic slightly, but I attended the remembrance service for our village in November and when they read the names of the WW1 Fallen there was a fairly uncommon name that was read three times and it brought tears to my eyes to think of parents in my village nearly 100 years ago losing three sons.

Since we're onto songs now

Extract from The Dangling Conversation (Simon & Garfunkel):

Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm,
Couplets out of rhyme,
In syncopated time
Lost in the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs.
Are the borders of our lives.

The Kohima Ephitaph - When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us and Say
For their tomorrow, we gave our today,

attributed to John Maxwell Edmonds (1875 -1958)

The Code Poem for the French Resistance by Leo Marks - used by Violet Szarbo a Resistance operator who was captured and executed in Ravensbruck.

"The life that I have is all that I have
And the life that I have is yours.
The love that I have of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours,
A sleep I shall have,
A rest I shall have,
Yet death shall be but a pause,
For the peace of my years in the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours,"

Also the poem based upon The Gresford Disaster of 1934 - we did this at school and it still sticks in my mind. 242 miners lost due to criminal lapses in Mine Safety.
"Down in the dark they are lying,
They died for nine shillings a day;
and later....The owners have sent some white lilies
To pay for the poor colliers lives."

Clary, I always get a tear on my eye at that line in Peepo too. It's the innocence and wonder.

Oh Laura, I love the Children of Green Knowe (watched the BBC version as a kid and fell in love) and that is one of the best and saddest bits. "The grandmother is rocking the cradle".

I love the bit at the end where Tolly ends up sitting in the same chair as one of the children (Alexander?) and only realises when Alexander gets up. This is why I was never scared of ghosts as a child.

That part of Dogger always gets me too, and also the end of When The World Was Waiting For You by Gillian Shields, it goes "Now the world still waits for you, to grow and bloom and be and do." I get teary everytime I read that