Stories in Verse (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781514606759)

Henry Abbey (July 11, 1842 - June 7, 1911) was an American poet who is best remembered for the poem, "What do we plant when we plant a tree?" He is also known for "The Bedouin's Rebuke". Abbey was born in Rondout (now a part of Kingston), New York, the son of Stephen Abbey, a merchant of farm products, and Caroline Vail. His family was moderately successful and able to support his attendance at Kingston Academy, the Delaware Literary Institute in Delhi, New York, and the Hudson River Institute across the river in Columbia County, but the uncertain grain and feed business was insufficient to enable him to attend college. When he was twenty or so, Abbey secured work as assistant editor of the Rondout Courier and for a time held the same job with the Orange (N.J.) Spectator, while contributing verses to many periodicals. In 1862 he financed the publication of a slim volume of his verse, May Dreams, dedicated to William Cullen Bryant, who generously allowed himself to be quoted in it as recognizing in the author "the marks of an affluent fancy". Abbey's verse was relatively simple in prosody, language, and topic, much of it celebrating nature and the beauties of his region.