--MILTON.

which was assigned by the poets to the lower world, and over
which the souls of the dead were said to be first conveyed, before
they were borne the Le'the, or "stream of oblivion," beyond. The
true Acheron of Epirus has been thus described:

Yonder rolls Acheron his dismal stream,
Sunk in a narrow bed: cypress and fir
Wave their dim foliage on his rugged banks;
And underneath their boughs the parched ground,
Strewed o'er with juniper and withered leaves,
Seems blasted by no mortal tread.

As the Acheron falls into the lake Acheru'sia, and after rising
from it flows underground for some distance, this lake also has
been connected by the poets with the gloomy legend of its fountain
stream.

This is the place
Sung by the ancient masters of the lyre,
Where disembodied spirits, ere they left
Their earthly mansions, lingered for a time
Upon the confines of eternal night,
Mourning their doom; and oft the astonished hind,
As home he journeyed at the fall of eve,
Viewed unknown forms flitting across his path,
And in the breeze that waved the sighing boughs
Heard shrieks of woe.
--HAYGARTH.