I was chatting elsewhere about this, thought I'd share:

From the first book of the Baroque Cycle – “Quicksilver” (2003), by Neal Stephenson

Dedication: “To the woman upstairs”

Invocation:

State your intentions, Muse. I know you’re there.
Dead bards who pined for you have said
You’re bright as flame, but fickle as the air
My pen and I, submerged in liquid shade,
Much dark can spread, on days and over reams
But without you, no radiance can shed.
Why rustle in the dark, when fledged with fire?
Craze the night with flails of light. Reave
Your turbid shroud. Bestow what I require.
But you’re not in the dark. I do Believe
I swim, like squid, in the clouds of my own make,
To you, offensive. To us both, opaque.
What’s constituted so, only a pen
Can penetrate. I have one here, let’s go.