Shantha Me Ra Yame Lyrics by Amaradeva

In this peaceful hour of night
the beauty of the water lily blooms
bathed gentle in the moonlight…//

It rises… a wave of love
it rises in the heart, a wave of love
in this stream of nectar, this stream of nectar
many a tree and creeper is being lulled
in this cool, soft breeze…

In this peaceful hour of night…/

Sweetly the koel’s song fills the air
sweetly the koel’s song fills the air
sorrow melts away on this full-moon night of Vesak
my love that I have won…

In this peaceful hour of night…/

Singing songs through this night
singing songs through this night
dancing a lovely dance
in this garden so radiant
we are lulled in the stream of love…

In this peaceful hour of night…//

It is a still, moonlit night, and a man stands in a beautiful garden with the woman he loves, letting the calm of the hour settle over both of them. That peace is the whole mood of the song. Nothing is rushed or aching here. This is love that has already arrived and is being savoured, not chased.

The opening lines hand the feeling over to images rather than words. He looks at the night the way you would look at a kumudu, the water lily that opens softly in moonlight, and at the moonlight itself falling gentle over everything. In Sinhala song the moon and the night-blooming water lily both stand for a calm, cooling kind of beauty, light that soothes rather than dazzles. So before he says anything about love, the setting already tells you this is a tender, unhurried feeling. Then the love rises in him like a wave, and he calls the night around them a stream of nectar, “ama dahara,” the sweet, immortal flow that lulls the trees and creepers along with the two of them. The whole garden, the cool breeze, the swaying leaves, seems to be rocking gently in the same happiness he feels.

The middle verse deepens it with two images a Sri Lankan listener catches at once. The koel, the kokila, sings sweetly through the dark. The koel’s call is the classic voice of longing and the turning of seasons in our poetry, and here its song fills the air with warmth instead of yearning. He places the moment on the full-moon night of Vesak, the most sacred and luminous night of the year, and says his sorrow melts away on it. Setting his happiness against that full moon is no small thing. It tells you this love feels blessed, almost serene, the way that night feels. The line “my love that I have won” carries quiet gratitude, the relief of someone who has been given what he hoped for.

By the last verse the two of them are singing and dancing together in the radiant garden, rocked side by side in that same stream of love. The song closes where it began, on the peace of the night, so the feeling you are left holding is not the thrill of new desire but something gentler and rarer, two people at ease in their love under a kind moon, wanting nothing more than this hour to last.