I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree Walden,
And a small cabin build there, with fancies and borrow'd axe make;

 ***



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This is the introducing poem in Emerson's Nature essay. Strangely, it is only seen in some particular edition(s)


The rounded world is fair to see,
Nine times folded in mystery:
Though baffled seers cannot
impart
The secret of its laboring heart,
Throb thine with Nature's
throbbing breast,
And all is clear from east to west.
Spirit that lurks each form within
Beckons to spirit of its kin;
Self-kindled every atom glows,
And hints the future which it owes.

There are many others which start with a different poem, I cannot understand what happen'd.

Now compare and contrast with the opening lines of the Tao Te Ching :

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and Earth.
The named is the mother of the ten thousand things.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
Ever desiring, one sees the manifestations.
These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
this appears as darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery.

It is quite possible that Emerson was aware of, or had read , the Tao Te Ching at some point, before producing his text, and that the lines/idea lay quietly in the subconscious, showing up in his writing as though original.

Would Huck Finn be considered a deadbeat by today's standards ? I hope not ..

Would Thoreau be the Huck Finn of his time ?

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Attributions 

Image : https://www.nps.gov/places/walden-pond-in-the-walden-pond-state-reservation.htm
Poetry : https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43281/the-lake-isle-of-innisfree

Title: Essays
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Editor: Edna H. L. Turpin
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16643/16643-h/16643-h.htm#FNanchor_469_469
and also
https://emersoncentral.com/texts/essays-second-series/nature/

The Complete Tao Te Ching
Translated by Gia-Fu Feng & Jane English