At dusk the doppelwälker
through looking glass does tread
Then smiling, wan, with face half gone
nods passage of the dead

This short poem is inspired by a political folk story about Abraham Lincoln. The story goes that on the night of his re-election, Lincoln saw two faces staring back at him from the mirror. Some say that seeing your doppelgänger is an omen of death. Several months into his second term, Lincoln was assassinated.

The illustration above is sketched over a so-called “spirit photo” depicting Lincoln’s ghost standing over his (then living) wife.