The Naked And The Nude

 For me, the naked and the nude 
(By lexicographers construed 
As synonyms that should express 
The same deficiency of dress 
Or shelter) stand as wide apart 
As love from lies, or truth from art.
 

Lovers without reproach will gaze 
On bodies naked and ablaze; 
The Hippocratic eye will see 
In nakedness, anatomy; 
And naked shines the Goddess when 
She mounts her lion among men.
 

The nude are bold, the nude are sly 
To hold each treasonable eye.
 
While draping by a showman's trick 
Their dishabille in rhetoric, 
They grin a mock-religious grin 
Of scorn at those of naked skin.
 

The naked, therefore, who compete 
Against the nude may know defeat; 
Yet when they both together tread 
The briary pastures of the dead, 
By Gorgons with long whips pursued, 
How naked go the sometime nude!

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