The Amulet by Ralph Waldo Emerson: Analysis and Commentary

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

 

Your picture smiles as first it smiled,

The ring you gave is still the same,

Your letter tells, O changing child,

No tidings since it came.

Give me an amulet

That keeps intelligence with you,

Red when you love, and rosier red,

And when you love not, pale and blue.

Alas, that neither bonds nor vows

Can certify possession;

Torments me still the fear that love

Died in its last expression.

“The Amulet” is a love poem of sorts, consisting of three stanzas, each of which expresses a different, but related thought on the topic of the speaker’s love for his beloved, the poem progressing from his contemplation of mementos that he has of her, to a magical amulet that he wishes he had instead of those mementos, to his realization that he is, and must remain, uncertain of the steadfastness of his beloved’s love.

 In the first stanza, the speaker speaks of the mementos of his beloved that he keeps in his possession: a picture of her, smiling; a ring she gave him; and a love letter she sent him. He finds each of these possessions to be insufficient in that they are static, while she is “changing.” As such, they do not truly represent her, for they depict her as she was in the past; today, she is different; tomorrow, she shall be still more different, for she is, as he says, a “changing child.”

In the second stanza, he voices his wish that, instead of the picture, ring, and letter, he possessed a magical charm, a talisman, or an “amulet,” that would truly represent his beloved, changing as she changes, reddening when she loves or becoming “pale and blue” when she does not love. Had he such a charm, he could tell at once whether her love for him remained in effect. She is, after all a “changing child,” and her love for him may expire.

The first to stanzas have focused on possessions: the picture, the ring, and the letter, in the first stanza, and the amulet in the second. None of these possessions allows the speaker to possess the heart of his beloved; she remains a “changing child,” who may or may not remain constant in her affections for him. It is this truth that the speaker comes to realize in having understood the limitations of the mementos of her that he possesses. The picture, the ring, and the letter are things. They are possessions but, in possessing them, he does not—and, he now realizes, he cannot—likewise possess her. She is a person, not a thing, and he is fearful that the last time that she told him of her love for him may have been the last time that she felt such love. Unable to possess her as he does his mementos of her (which are not even true representations of her any longer), he must face the fearful possibility that, sooner or later, he may lose her.