What about this?

use strict;
use XML::LibXML;

parse();

sub parse {
my $filename = shift;
my $parser = XML::LibXML->new();
my $doc    = $parser->parse_string(<<'EOT');
<root>
  <node>text1
   <child1>data</child1>
   <child2>data2</child2>
  </node>
  <node>text2
   <child1>blah</child1>
   <child2>data3</child2>
  </node>
</root>
EOT
    foreach my $node ($doc->findnodes('/root/node/text()[1]')) {
        print "string value :".$node->string_value."\n";
        print "to literal :".$node->to_literal."\n";
        print "node name :".$node->nodeName()."\n";
        print "____________________\n";
    }
}
[download]

Output:

string value :text1
   
to literal :text1
   
node name :#text
____________________
string value :text2
   
to literal :text2
   
node name :#text
____________________
[download]

ikegami was close, but he missed adding the proximity position of the first member of the node-set (the [1]).