What Do We Plant?

What Do We Plant?
 
What do we plant when we plant the tree?
     We plant the ship, which will cross the sea.
We plant the mast to carry the sails;
     We plant the planks to withstand the gales -
The keel, the keelson, the beam, the knee;
     We plant the ship when we plant the tree.
 
What do we plant when we plant the tree?
     We plant the houses for you and me.
We plant the rafters, the shingles, the floors,
     We plant the studding, the lath, the doors,
The beams and siding, all parts that be;
     We plant the house when we plant the tree.
 
What do we plant when we plant the tree?
     A thousand things that we daily see;
We plant the spire that out-towers the crag,
     We plant the staff for our country’s flag,
We plant the shade, from the hot sun free;
     We plant all these when we plant the tree.
 
by Henry Abbey
 
Henry Lamont Abbey was born on 11 July 1842 in Rondout, New York, United States of America. He was married to Mary Louise Dubois on 26 December 1865. He became a newspaper editor, a banker, and a poet. His collections of poetry books include “May Dreams” (1862), “Ralph and Other Poems” (1866), “Stories in Verse” (1869), “Ballads of Good Deeds” (1872), “Poems by Henry Abbey” (1879), and “The City of Success and Other Poems” (1883). Henry Lamont Abbey passed on at 68 years of age on 7 June 1911 in Tenafly, New Jersey, United States of America.