Thoas. 
Mine eyes might drink the evil of their crime?

Iphigenia.

And, should I seem to stay too long ...

Thoas. 
Too long?  How shall I judge the time?

Iphigenia. 
Be not dismayed.

Thoas. 
Perform thy rite all duly.  We have time to spare.

Iphigenia. 
And God but grant this cleansing end as I desire!

Thoas. 
I join thy prayer.

Iphigenia. 
The door doth open!  See, they lead the strangers from
    the cell within,
And raiment holy and young lambs, whose blood shall
    shrive the blood of Sin. 
And, lo, the light of sacred fires, and things of secret
    power, arrayed
By mine own hand to cleanse aright the strangers, to
    cleanse Leto’s Maid.

[she takes up the image again.]

There passeth here a holy thing:  begone, I charge ye,
    from the road,
O whoso by these sacred gates may dwell, hand-consecrate
    to God,
What man hath marriage in his heart, what woman
    goeth great with child,
Begone and tremble from this road:  fly swiftly, lest ye
    be defiled.—­

O Queen and Virgin, Leto-born, have pity!  Let me
    cleanse this stain,
And pray to thee where pray I would:  a clean house
    shall be thine again,
And we at last win happiness.—­Behold, I speak but as
    I dare;
The rest ...  Oh, God is wise, and thou, my Mistress,
    thou canst read my prayer.

[The procession passes out, thoas and the bystanders veiled; Attendants in front, then iphigenia with the Image, then veiled Soldiers, then Orestes and Pylades bound, the bonds held by other veiled Soldiers following them.  Thoas goes into the Temple.]

Chorus. [Strophe.]
  Oh, fair the fruits of Leto blow: 
  A Virgin, one, with joyous bow,
  And one a Lord of flashing locks,
    Wise in the harp, Apollo: 
  She bore them amid Delian rocks,
    Hid in a fruited hollow.

  But forth she fared from that low reef,
  Sea-cradle of her joy and grief. 
  A crag she knew more near the skies
    And lit with wilder water,
  That leaps with joy of Dionyse: 
    There brought she son and daughter.

  And there, behold, an ancient Snake,
  Wine-eyed, bronze-gleaming in the brake
  Of deep-leaved laurel, ruled the dell,
    Sent by old Earth from under
  Strange caves to guard her oracle—­
    A thing of fear and wonder.

  Thou, Phoebus, still a new-born thing,
    Meet in thy mother’s arms to lie,
  Didst kill the Snake and crown thee king,
    In Pytho’s land of prophecy: 
  Thine was the tripod and the chair
  Of golden truth; and throned there,
  Hard by the streams of Castaly,
    Beneath the untrodden portal
  Of Earth’s mid stone there flows from thee
    Wisdom for all things mortal.