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    • HOME
    • ORIGINS & LOVE STORIES
    • FAMILY ARCHIVE
    • GENEALOGY & DNA
    • OUR COMMUNITIES
    • FAMILY VOICES & LEGACY
  • HOME
  • ORIGINS & LOVE STORIES
  • FAMILY ARCHIVE
  • GENEALOGY & DNA
  • OUR COMMUNITIES
  • FAMILY VOICES & LEGACY

PORTRAIT OF A JANITOR EXERPTS

POETRY OF WILLIAH HARVEY MEEHAN

A LOVE POEM TO NEBRASKA

Dad loved Nebraska and was never ashamed to say so. He was born in Nebraska where his family were Homesteaders in a community of farmers and ranchers. Thanks to Nebraska Stories for sharing the story of Nebraska's African-descended Canadian/American Homesteaders. I believe this presentation of his poem about Nebraska would thrill Dad.


From PBS's NEBRASKA STORIES Facebook post: "He was the son of Charles and Hester Meehan, a bi-racial couple who emigrated from Canada and eventually settled along the North Loup River near a place called DeWitty. William Meehan loved Nebraska and often shared his fond childhood memories with his daughter, Catherine, who now reads a poem her father wrote when he was a teenager." 

NEBRASKA STORIES

Follow the link below to Nebraska, a PBS Nebraska Stories presentation produced by Kelly Rush.

NEBRASKA by William Meehan

  Each day

I shall be resurrected

From the grave

Of some disappointment or sorrow.

I will not make a fetish

Of my defeats,

Nor hang them

In the halls of my heart,

Nor worship them.

The loves, hopes and ambitions

That have failed me,

Or perchance that I have failed,

Are dead, and I will not live

In the putrid atmosphere of sorrow.

I shall bury them,

Reverently, for what they have been

And for what they have taught me;

Deeply, for what they have ceased to be.

Upon the graves

I shall plant the flowers

Of kind remembrance,

And for one brief hour,

Water them

With the sincere tears of regret.

Then I shall emulate the Psalmist,

And “LIFT UP MINE EYES UNTO THE HILLS

FROM WHENCE COMETH MY HELP.”

I shall be true to the life

With which the CREATOR

Has endowed me.

I shall not bury it with the dead,

Nor crucify it

By keeping vigil beside a grave.

But with that life,

I shall follow

The glowing star of faith

Far thru the valley,

And at length to the heights

Where mortal life blends

Into eternity.


William H. Meehan

I SHALL BE RESURRECTED

Poem by William H. Meehan

SINS AND VIRTUES

Once I blamed men for their errors

And I still do not like sin,

But I could not be judge of others

Yet fail to judge myself within.


For my life is but a record

Of mistakes and errors too,

Time and memory hold a mirror

For my heart and mind to view.

 

And my conscience will upbraid me

When I scorn the one who fell,

As I look I see my foot prints

Often headed straight for hell.


So I bow my head in meekness

Judging not by what I see,

God alone knows all about it

Have mercy, Lord, when you judge me.

 

As I ask for God's forgiveness

Let me forget what others do,

For I know my sins are many

And my virtues very few. 


by William H. Meehan

                       AI generated image.

THE MOON

The moon, the queen of the heavens,

Sends down her majestic light, 

She bathes the earth with her brightness,

For the moon is the ruler of night.


When the clouds hang low on the hill tops,

And the wind whistles wild through the trees,

If the moon her lone vigil is keeping,

The traveler can go where he please.


Oh! Where is her equal for beauty,

                    No planet can with her compare,

The sun alone can outshine her,

But at night the sun is not there.


When the snow on the ground deep is lying,

And the night air is cold, crisp and rare,

Oh! What is the use of a sleighing,

If the moon is not out pure and clear.


The moon is the friend of all nations,

In what ever climes they may be,

She's the friend of the lonely sailor,

On his ship far out on the sea.


Fare-well, our monthly arrival,

Fare-well, guardian of the night,

Thy welcome shall ever be hearty,

Fare-well, may you ever shine bright.

William H. Meehan

at 16 years of age

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