The studio drifted with scent of the rose,
Where shadows of summer lay soft in repose.
There Basil Hallward had picked up his brush,
To capture a youth in a passionate rush.
And Dorian Gray was the name of the prize,
With gold in his hair and the dawn in his eyes.

Lord Henry Wotton sat smoking nearby,
With words like a poison and wit like a sigh.
“Youth is the only thing precious on earth,
And beauty alone is the measure of worth.
It fades like the leaf, it will wither and die,
And leave you forgotten beneath the cold sky.”

Young Dorian listened, and looked at the art,
A sudden, wild terror transfixing his heart.
“If I could stay young while the picture grows old!
For that I would trade my own soul to be sold!
I’d give every breath for the canvas to bear
The lines of the age and the weight of the care.”

[…]

He fell for an actress, the sweet Sybil Vane,
Who lived in a theater of romance and pain.
But when her art failed him, he cast her aside,
And left her to weep in her fractured, young pride.
She drank of the poison, she died in the night,
And Dorian shuddered in morning’s cold light.

He looked at the portrait upon his return,
And saw a sharp cruelty begin to discern.
A touch of a sneer on the beautiful face,
A shadow of sin in the lines of its grace.
He hid it away in the attic of old,
Where no one could watch as his spirit grew cold.

For eighteen long years did the madness extend,
As Henry’s dark book was his guide and his friend.
He walked through the dens where the opium smoked,
While high-society praised him and cloaked.
His body stayed flawless, untouched by the years,
While the thing in the attic was feeding on tears.

[…]

Old Basil came calling to bid him adieu,
And begged for the truth of the rumors he knew.
So Dorian led him up over the stair,
To show him the soul that was rotting up there.
The canvas was bloated, a monster of dread,
With eyes that were dripping in terrible red.

In fury and madness, as Basil did pray,
Young Dorian snatched up a dagger to slay.
He buried the steel in the artist’s warm throat,
And called an old friend to dissolve his stained coat.
The murder was hidden, the evidence burned,
But back to the attic the killer returned.

The picture grew foul with the blood on its hand,
The ultimate horror he could not withstand.
“I’ll destroy the last witness!” he cried in his dread,
And struck at the canvas to sever its thread.
A terrible cry shook the house in the night,
That brought out the servants in trembling fright.

Inside the locked room of the attic they found
A withered old man dead and bare on the ground.
His face was all wrinkled, a loathsome display,
With a knife in his heart where he withered away.
While hanging above him, untarnished and bright,
The youthful young Dorian smiled in the light.