A Spanish Legend

There is a story in a Spanish book,

About a noisy reveller, who, one night,

Returning home with others, saw a light

Shine from a window, and climbed up to look;

And saw, within the room, hanged to a hook,

His own self-strangled self, grim, rigid, white;

And, stricken sober by that livid sight,

Feasting his eyes, in wordless horror shook.

Has any man a fancy to look in,

And see as through a window, in the Past,

His nobler self, self-choked with coils of sin,

Or sloth, or folly?—round the throat whipped fast,

The nooses give the face a stiffened grin:

'Tis but thyself; look well; why be aghast?