The White Cliffs: written by Alice Duer and 50 similar items

August 4, 1941. Poem tells the story of an American girl who comes to visit England for a week, falls in love, loses her husband in WW I, realizes England is now home. But, when war again threatens she fears the loss of her son in the manner of his father and realizes she must choose. Poem, which was the basis for a movie with a very young Elizabeth Taylor, Alice Duer Miller (July 28, 1874 - Aug 22, 1942) was an American writer and poet. In 1940, she wrote the verse novel The White Cliffs. The story is of an American girl who coming to London as a tourist, meets and marries a young upper-class Englishman in the period just before the First World War. The War begins and he goes to the front. He is killed just before the end of the War, leaving her with a young son. Her son is the heir to the family estate. Despite the pull of her own country and the impoverished condition of the estate, she decides to stay and live the traditional life of a member of the English upper class. The story concludes as The Second World War commences and she worries that her son, like his father, will be killed fighting for the country he loves. The poem ends with the lines: ...I am American bred I have seen much to hate here - much to forgive, But in a world in which England is finished and dead, I do not wish to live.