Song of myself

I was reading a little on Taoism, and everything reminded me of Song of Myself and Whitman. And it seems not far from some of Christ's teachings of the NT.

Mt 18.3 and 10.15
Jn 14.16

http://www.bartleby.com/248/366.html Song of Myself

I find the 道德經 far easier to understand than Song of Myself, and I can't read Chinese.

I did enjoy, and sort of get the point of, The Tao is Silent.

I believe the "I" in Song of Myself isn't meant to be Whitman (but couldn't tell you why), but it does come across as a personal perspective, whereas the Tao seems cleanly impersonal to me. Isn't that a major difference?

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

I think ultimately Song of Myself may not be so personal.

Even the overarching metaphor of leaves of grass suggests the individual contributing to the whole.

"Nature without check with original energy"

That phrase, my favorite in the poem, speaks to me how I understand Taoism.

Funny, I just finished reading Song of Myself in its entirety for the first time, and it reminded me a lot of Taoism.