$re = '/(?s)(\G|<p class="oyric">)((?!</p>).)*?\K((?<=>)\h+|\h+(?=<|\h))/m';
$str = ' <div align="justify">
<table width="552" border="0">
<tr>
<td><h1 class="article" itemprop="name">Modals</h1></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="text_dreapta">On February 25, 2011, in <a href="modals.html" title="View all articles from Modals" class="external" rel="category tag">Destiny</a>, by Roland Worrior</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p class="text_obisnuit2"><em>Should I stay or should I go?</em></p>
<p class="oyric"> Laurie Strode comes to her final confrontation with Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped. </p>';
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php