This long lyric outburst, wholly unnecessary to an action which was already complete, seems an instructive fact to place before young writers in a time when many souls which might be poetic gardens if they would compact all their energies into growing two roses and a lily--three poems in all, for a lifetime--become instead mere wastes of profuse weeds that grow and are cut down and cast into the oven with each monthly magazine. But it would not be fair to leave Shelley with this flat taste in our mouths, and I will therefore beg to finish our examination of the _Prometheus Unbound_ by three quotations from these last acts, in which his modernness of detail and of subtlety,--being exercised upon matters capable of such treatment--has made for us some strong and beautiful poetry. Here for instance at the opening of Scene I. Act II. we have a charming specimen of the modern poetic treatment of nature and of landscape, full of spirituality and full of detail. The stage direction is "Morning; A Lovely Vale in the Indian Caucasus. Asia, alone." Asia, who is the lovely bride of Prometheus, is awaiting Panthea who is to come with news of him. She begins with an invocation of the Spring. ASIA. "From all the blasts of heaven thou hast descended! Yea, like a spirit, like a thought, which makes Unwonted tears throng to the horny eyes, And beatings haunt the desolated heart Which should have learnt repose, thou hast descended Cradled in tempests; thou dost wake, O Spring! O child of many winds! As suddenly Thou comest as the memory of a dream, Which now is sad because it hath been sweet! Like genius, or like joy which riseth up ... As from the earth, clothing with golden clouds The desert of our life. This is the season, this the day, the hour; At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine. Too long desired, too long delaying, come! How like death-worms the wingless moments crawl! The point of one white star is quivering still Deep in the orange light of widening morn Beyond the purple mountains: through a chasm Of wind-divided mist the darker lake Reflects it: now it wanes: it gleams again As the waves fade, and as the burning threads Of woven cloud unravel the pale air: 'Tis lost! and through yon peaks of cloud-like snow The roseate sunlight quivers: hear I not The Æolian music of her sea-green plumes Winnowing the crimson dawn?" And here we find some details of underwater life which are modern. Two fauns are conversing: one inquires where live certain delicate spirits whom they hear talking about the woods, but never meet. We are here in an atmosphere very much like that of _The Midsummer-Night's Dream_. I scarcely know anything more compact of pellucid beauty: it seems quite worthy of Shakspeare. "SECOND FAUN.