Poem 2 - The Naked and the Nude

This poem has always influenced my understanding of the words "naked" and "nude" and the underlying connotations. I remember the shear awe that went through my mind the very first time I read it. The weakness and vulnerability associated with nakedness and the foil of strength, confidence, and -- at times -- arrogance of nudism are concepts that stay with me to this day. Robert Graves 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!