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?
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