As the dawn was just breaking he found himself close to Covent Garden. The darkness lifted, and, flushed with faint fires, the sky hollowed itself into a perfect pearl. Huge carts filled with nodding lilies rumbled slowly down the polished empty street.
– Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 7. After Dorian’s cruel rant to Sibyl, angrily telling her that she is nothing to him, he wanders the night through the dimly lit and shadowy streets of London. Then when he enters Covent Garden the darkness lifts and the sky metaphorically becomes a pearl, reflecting a more optimistic mood and Dorian’s desire to retain his youth and beauty. The lilies here are a symbol of death – Sibyl commits suicide by poison, but Dorian doesn’t know that yet.