Read "The Wolf at the Door" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
There's a haunting horror near us / That nothing drives away: / Fierce lamping eyes at nightfall, / A crouching shade by day; / There's a whining at the threshold, / There's a scratching at the floor. / To work! To work! In Heaven's name! / The wolf is at the door!
The day was long, the night was short, / The bed was hard and cold; / Still weary are the little ones, / Still weary are the old. / We are weary in our cradles / From our mother's toil untold; / We are born to hoarded weariness / As some to hoarded gold.
We will not rise! We will not work! / Nothing the day can give / Is half so sweet as an hour of sleep; / Better to sleep than live! / What power can stir these heavy limbs? / What hope these dull hearts swell? / What fear more cold, what pain more sharp, / Than the life we know so well?
To die like a man by lead or steel / Is nothing that we should fear; / No human death would be worse to feel / Than the life that holds us here. / But this is a fear no heart can face- / A fate no man can dare- / To be run to earth and die by the teeth / Of the gnawing monster there!
The slow, relentless, padding step / That never goes astray- / The rustle in the underbrush- / The shadow in the way- / The straining flight-the long pursuit- / The steady gain behind- / Death-wearied man and tireless brute, / And the struggle wild and blind!
There's a hot breath at the keyhole / And a tearing as of teeth! / Well do I know the bloodshot eyes / And the dripping jaws beneath! / There's a whining at the threshold- / There's a scratching at the floor- / To work! To work! In Heaven's name! / The wolf is at the door!