Read "To an Autograph-Hunter" by George MacDonald online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Seek not my name -- it doth no virtue bear; / Seek, seek thine own primeval name to find -- / The name God called when thy ideal fair / Arose in deeps of the eternal mind.
When that thou findest, thou art straight a lord / Of time and space -- art heir of all things grown; / And not my name, poor, earthly label-word, / But I myself thenceforward am thine own.
Thou hearest not? Or hearest as a man / Who hears the muttering of a foolish spell?
My very shadow would feel strange and wan / In thy abode: -- I say _No_, and _Farewell_.
Thou understandest? Then it is enough; / No shadow-deputy shall mock my friend; / We walk the same path, over smooth and rough, / To meet ere long at the unending end.