The rest of Act III. is filled with long descriptions of the change which comes upon the world with the dethronement of Jove. Act IV. is the most amazing piece of surplusage in literature; the catastrophe has been reached long ago in the third act. Jove is in eternal duress, Prometheus has been liberated and has gone with Asia and Panthea to his eternal paradise above the earth, and a final radiant picture of the reawakening of man and nature under the new régime has closed up the whole with the effect of a transformation-scene. Yet, upon all this, Shelley drags in Act IV. which is simply leaden in action and color alongside of Act III. and in which the voices of unseen spirits, the chorus of Hours, Jove, Panthea, Demogorgon, the Earth and the Moon pelt each other with endless sweetish speeches that rain like ineffectual comfits in a carnival of silliness. For example, a Voice of Unseen Spirits cries: "Bright clouds float in heaven, Dew-stars gleam on earth, Waves assemble on ocean: They are gathered and driven By the storm of delight, by the panic of glee! They shake with emotion, They dance in their mirth. But where are ye? The pine boughs are singing Old songs with new gladness; The billows and fountains Fresh music are flinging Like the notes of a spirit from land and from sea; The storms mock the mountains With the thunder of gladness. But where are ye?" The people thus inquired for, being the chorus of Hours, sleepily reply: "The voice of the spirits of air and of earth Has drawn back the figured curtain of sleep Which covered our being and darkened our birth In the deep." A VOICE. In the deep? SEMI-CHORUS. Oh, below the deep. .... SEMI-CHORUS I. We have heard the lute of Hope in sleep; We have known the voice of love in dreams, We have felt the wand of power come and leap-- SEMI-CHORUS II. "As the billows leap in the morning beams," CHORUS. "Weave the dance on the floor of the breeze, Pierce with song heaven's silent light, Enchant the day that too swiftly flees, To check its flight ere the cave of night. Once the hungry Hours were hounds Which chased the day like a bleeding deer, And it limped and stumbled with many wounds Through the nightly dells of the desert year. But now oh! weave the mystic measure Of music, and dance, and shapes of light; Let the Hours and the spirits of night and pleasure Like the clouds and sunbeams unite." CHORUS OF SPIRITS. "We join the throng Of the dance and the song, By the whirlwind of gladness borne along; As the flying-fish leap From the Indian deep And mix with the sea-birds half asleep."