Get all items of a HTML element

Below is the output of alert( rd.innerHTML );:

 <ruby><rb>「わたし</rb><rt><br>watashi</rt></ruby><ruby><rb>は</rb><rt><br>wa</rt></ruby>」&lt;Name des Sprechers&gt;<br><ruby><rb>です</rb><rt><br>desu</rt></ruby>。

I like to iterate over all those elements. I tried (among others):

var items = rd.getElementsByTagName("*");
for (var i = 0; i < items.length; i++) {
    var item = items[i];
    alert( item.innerHTML);
}

But for the loop above I will get

  • <rb>「わたし</rb><rt><br>watashi</rt>
  • 「わたし
  • n watashi
  • “
  • <rb>は</rb><rt><br>wa</rt>
  • は
  • n wa
  • “
  • “
  • <rb>です</rb><rt><br>desu</rt>
  • です
  • n desu
  • “

How can I loop this HTML and also get the item 」&lt;Name des Sprechers&gt;<br>