Leaves of Grass 4

They are alive and well somewhere; / The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, / And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, / And ceased the moment life appeared.

Importance
Following his discussion on his growing older and transition from a young man to an old one, or at least a middle aged one, Whitman dedicates a few passages to the confrontation of his own mortality. This progression from fear of getting older in previous sections to his acceptance, and yet simultaneous denial, of death shows the speaker's growth and increasing maturity. He thinks about death in an abstract fashion, so he is gaining the mental capacity of a rational adult instead of one of a child. Although he is growing older, he is growing wiser.

Analysis
Whitman is establishing a grass motif early on in the poem. He uses the existence of a blade of grass as proof against the idea of full and absolute death. The fact that he uses grass, one of the smallest visible life forms, for the metaphor shows his belief that life does not only exist in the complexity that is humanity but also the simplicity that is a single spear of grass. Previously in the poem, he talks about how grass is the "uncut hair of graves", so he could be saying that people live because their bodies fertilize the ground after they die, and lead to the production and nourishment of new life. Because death "lead forward life", he shows his understanding of the life cycle, that without death life cannot exist. However, its only purpose is to perpetuate life, because death "ceases the moment life appears". As soon as someone's legacy leads to the birth of something else, they are no longer dead but instead live inside that new creation.