The Naked And The Nude

For me, the naked and the nude (By lexicographers

As synonyms that should

The same deficiency of

Or shelter) stand as wide

As love from lies, or truth from art.

Lovers without reproach will

On bodies naked and ablaze;

The Hippocratic eye will

In nakedness, anatomy;

And naked shines the Goddess

She mounts her lion among men.

The nude are bold, the nude are

To hold each treasonable eye.

While draping by a showman's

Their dishabille in rhetoric,

They grin a mock-religious

Of scorn at those of naked skin.

The naked, therefore, who

Against the nude may know defeat;

Yet when they both together

The briary pastures of the dead,

By Gorgons with long whips pursued,

How naked go the sometimes nude!