“I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me and gives something to it.” 

– Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

 

gray

That which I loved, and that which I lost;

I begin to despair as my beauty fades,

As the winter comes, covering my heart in frost,

With my dying youth, my gaiety abrades.

 

Time, beguiling and merciless, ignores my pleas,

The vindictive taunt of the glass I despise

Is all but deafening, I fall to my knees

And though the wind bays, it cannot mask my cries.

 

Dorian Gray, I now understand 

The cost of yearning for youth is one’s humanity;

The life within is no longer mine to command,

All that is left is my undying vanity.

 

But o’er the years I have finally come to see

That which mars my skin does not permeate me.

 

written by Keerthi Selvam

reviewed by Sarasi Rout and Saanvi Gutta

 

References:

Manchess, G., Manchess, G., & Profile, V. (2022, September 7). The Portrait of Dorian Gray. Muddy Colors. https://www.muddycolors.com/2022/09/the-portrait-of-dorian-gray/