Intuition [poem by Mary E. Fullerton]

[Editor: This poem by Mary Eliza Fullerton was published in Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics (1908).]

Intuition

Is she remembrance, and the lesson saved
From incidents forgot? She makes a fool
Of every pedagogue that thumbs the rule;
Hers is the message of the aeons graved
Upon the brain, in Memory cells encaved —
The soul of Memory. She bideth full
Of lucent meaning by the gleaming pool
Where new young souls with mystic rites are laved.

Before man was she or by need begot?
Yet she transcends his parts of sense and mind,
Whispers of things unknown that earth holds not —
Sure guide to us, the legion of the blind.
At his first breath, of earth she makes man wise,
And through Time chants of the Eternities.

Source:
Mary E. Fullerton, Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics, Melbourne: Thomas C. Lothian, 1908, p. 25

Editor’s notes:
aeon = (also spelt eon) an immeasurably long period of time; (in geology) a period of one thousand million years

lave = to lap up against or wash up against