substring-before demo
File: Data.xml <poem> <verse>line 1</verse> <verse> line 2 </verse> </poem> File: Transform.xslt <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0"> <xsl:output method="xml" omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="no" /> <xsl:template match="verse"> <xsl:value-of select="substring-before(.,'dreary')" /> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet>