Lost in Literature

O, mem'ries what beholden me at night,
to tempt my mind from wondrous words to those,
that write in person, action, sound, and sight,
hold not with structure found in verse and prose,
that sing to us and speak what is not said,
amuse, enrage, or bring such joy and strife.
Their pain endures past all the paper read,
the cover closes not the Book of Life.
All books enshelv'ed, mind released to think,
on all the sorrows of this world and age. 
Of these I chanced to lose amid the ink,
that stains the ends of fingers on the page;
when I my eyes the outside world forsooke,
and drifted down to rest upon a book.