"Friday, 14th September. Martigny.--Passing the turn of the ascent, we come to another Cross, (placed there to face the Traveller ascending from the other side), and, from the brow of the eminence, behold! to our left, the huge Form of Mont Blanc--pikes, towers, needles, and wide wastes of everlasting snow in dazzling brightness. Below is the river Arve, a grey-white line, winding to the village of Chamouny, dimly seen in the distance. Our station, though on a height so commanding, was on the lowest point of the eminence; and such as I have sketched (but how imperfectly!) was the scene uplifted and outspread before us. The higher parts of the mountain in our neighbourhood are sprinkled with brown Chalets. So they were thirty years ago, as my Brother well remembered; and he pointed out to us the very quarter from which a Boy greeted him and his companion with an Alpine cry-- The stranger seen below, the boy Shouts from the echoing hills with savage joy."[HQ] (From Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, vol. ii.) See also note to _Engelberg, the Hill of Angels_, p. 317, and to _Our Lady of the Snow_, p. 320.--ED. VARIANTS: [Footnote 499: 1837. ... Cantons of Switzerland. 1822. ] [Footnote 500: 1827. O Life! without thy chequered scene Of right and wrong, of weal and woe, Success and failure, could a ground For magnanimity be found? For faith, 'mid ruined hopes, serene? Or whence could virtue flow? Yet are we doomed our native dust 1832. The edition of 1837 returns to the text of 1827.] [Footnote 501: 1827. ... fruitless shower, 1832. The edition of 1837 returns to the text of 1827.] [Footnote 502: 1827. And ill it suits us to disdain 1832. The edition of 1837 returns to the text of 1827.] [Footnote 503: 1832. Where patient ... 1827. ] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote HO: Wordsworth's spelling is retained.--ED.] [Footnote HP: See _The Solitary Reaper_ (vol. ii. p. 398).--ED.] [Footnote HQ: See _Descriptive Sketches_ (vol. i. p. 59).--ED.] XV AFTER-THOUGHT Oh Life! without thy chequered scene Of right and wrong, of weal and woe, Success and failure, could a ground For magnanimity be found; For faith, 'mid ruin'd hopes, serene? 5 Or whence could virtue flow? Pain entered through a ghastly breach-- Nor while sin lasts must effort cease; Heaven upon earth's an empty boast; But, for the bowers of Eden lost, 10 Mercy has placed within our reach A portion of God's peace. The first stanza of this _After-Thought_ was first published in the edition of 1832, as the beginning of the poem _Composed in one of the Catholic Cantons_, and the second stanza in the edition of 1837 when the _After-Thought_ first appeared.--ED. XVI