Flesh food

[bloomcountry]

Does "flesh food" refer to human flesh or to the flesh of all animals? Thanks:

"A good law, for both man and beast:
Let all flesh food -for a thousand pities-
Enter to us as lifeless meat,
And goad no live thing, through our cities".

"The City's Ways" (New Poems), by W. H. Davies.

 

[grassy]

Why did you think of human flesh? Humans are very rarely eaten, be it by other humans or animals.

 

[PaulQ]

The poem remarks upon the way that the city makes brutes of people and gives instances of cruelty to animals. It then gives a happier picture of rural animals. "Flesh food" refers to farm animals in general.

Enter to us as lifeless meat, has a double meaning (i) [farm animals] to be eaten, should come to city people as meat, i.e. kill only for necessity. (ii) [living animals] should not come into the experience of city people.

 

[tunaafi]

I'd say it referred to all animals, domesticated and wild.

 

[kentix]

To me it says something simple. Kill farm animals outside the city and bring the meat in as meat. Don't drive the live animals in herds through the city to butcher shops or slaughterhouses - presumably because it's stressful for the animals and inconvenient for the city dwellers.

 

[tunaafi]