Spatterdock Croquet

When Nature frees the lotus (This year's debut emergence) From their sleeping seeds, When they begin to cress the surface, I shall stand with broadened smile, My heart's joy augment threefold; And when the lillies burst In galvanic evening's gold, If the expansion of elation Don't mean I'm likely doomed To laugh so hard confined In the vaulted night perfumed And if I don't spit out my life When the lillies shoot their seeds And no tremors shall have seized my heart Nor Death, my ticket, heeds: When Cold caresses the membranes, Bringing the lillies to rot and break, Bowing down before the wind, Their thirst, face down, to slake, They later will be frozen On the very coldest day, Bent into the wickets Of Spatterdock Croquet.