Clio, Thalia, Euterpe,
Hither come and sing in me
Clear my eyes that I may see
Clio, Thalia, Euterpe.
Clio with thy book and scroll
Of your learning make me free
Write me on your scholar’s roll
Wreathéd muse of history.
Clio, Thalia, Euterpe,
Hither come and sing in me.
Thalia, masked, with ivy crowned
Enter here with mischief airy
In the theatre’s sacred bound
Grace the act till all make merry.
Clio, Thalia, Euterpe,
Hither come and sing in me.
Euterpe, thy tuneful art
Grant me that my hearers be
Spellbound by both ear and heart
And enchanted lastingly.
Clio, Thalia, Euterpe,
Endow me with your virtues three
Ever singing, be with me
Clio, Thalia, Euterpe.

Process notes
This poem took more than four years to finish. The idea and refrain came to me in late summer of 2016 and then sat stubbornly in my brain, refusing to do anything. Then early in 2022, suddenly flow happened and I finished the poem with ease and enjoyment. (Always save your notes.)
The three Muses addressed are Clio, Muse of History, whose iconography includes a scroll or book, Thalia, Muse of Comedy, who wears a laughing mask, and Euterpe, who is identified in different periods either as the Muse of music or of lyric poetry. I practice both those arts, so she seemed to fit. Euterpe is traditionally shown playing or carrying a flute.
The form is a modified trochaic tetrameter. Most of the lines lack the final unaccented syllable. In this, I follow my model, “Queen and Huntress, chaste and fair,” by Ben Jonson, a hymn to the Goddess Diana. Like Jonson’s, my poem is an explicit invocation. It follows the long tradition of poetic invocations going back to the classical period and continuing in English poetry through Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, and Wordsworth to the present day.
The image is a 17th-century allegorical painting by Eustache Le Sueur of my three muses bearing their trademark props,.