The Sammelband Dream

I saw two dark volumes of ancient text    
with their cover boards in a collate twist    
and old water damage that left them flexed,    
which is just the thing no scholar can resist.    
   
They were under an old magazine stack    
of surplus National Geographics    
and a Britannica set, on a rack,    
with an undiscovered script of Sapphics.    
   
They were the totem midnight mind précis    
of all the old books I will never read    
or quick scan on a literary spree,    
were I an immortal cranked up on speed.    
   
And thus my books, like a cellar of wine,    
are spirits serving...a subconscious shrine.