Whitman's "This Compost"

Something has separated Whitman from nature.
He is angry at nature.
Angry that nature, even though it appears dead, is bringing forth new life; where as his own body as it dies will seem to only die.
The land is continually filled with dead bodies.
How can nature hide all of the death that it has been witness to?
Perhaps the dead things have been buried and can be overturned with a plough or spade.

Perhaps all the soil has once been part of a sick, dead, person!
"The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves." Resurrection - birth from death
The new spring life is so innocent - oblivious to the death it has overcome just be bursting forth from the ground.

Whitman wants to blame the decay of plant life on a diseased wind, yet finds they "... are really not infectious."
He realizes that nature is in fact safe - although in itself causes its own illness, death, and decay.
How can something that dies as if by nothing be safe?
He is amazed that everything can be so clean, fresh, when all of it once came from something that lie dying.

It is this realization that has drawn a line between him and nature.
How can nature "...grow such sweet things out of such corruption?"
Whitman cannot accept that he just cannot understand the workings of the Earth.
How can the Earth be so generous when all we give in return is "death"?