Strangled

There is a legend in some Spanish book
About a noisy reveller who, at 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 who, struck sober by that livid sight,
Feasting his eyes, in tongue-tied horror shook.

Has any man a fancy to peep 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?