Daffodil Mala Lyrics by Dayan Witharana

Was it you who stole my heart away, Daffodil flower?
With a smile as lovely as snow, you settled into my heart
What murmurs to me is the sound of the wind through the misty hills
You are still mine alone, my beloved girl

Far away, on the distant shore
In the cool sea breeze
Holding her two hands in the sand
Under the fine drizzling cloud
With love I kissed her flower-soft face
Tenderly, close to me
The feelings linger in my memory, held in her eyes
On that evening time

In the lake the trees sway sweetly in the garden
On the night the moon rose and bloomed
She wrapped her two arms around me like a creeper
On the bridge of tangled vines
With love, my heart like a lake
Trembled at her gentle touch
The feelings are sweet, held in my memory
On that evening time

A young man is looking back on a girl he loved, the one he calls his “Daffodil flower.” The whole song lives in memory, in one evening by the sea that he keeps returning to. He opens by half asking, half marvelling, was it really you who quietly stole my heart? He still cannot quite believe how easily she did it, with nothing more than a smile.

That smile is the first image to decode. He calls it as lovely as snow, “hima wage.” For a Sri Lankan, snow is not an everyday sight, it stands for something pure, cool and untouched, almost unreal in its beauty. So her smile is not just pretty, it is clean and calming, the kind that settles a restless heart rather than stirs it up. Even the wind moving through the misty hills seems to whisper her name to him. He hears her in everything.

The middle of the song is the memory itself, and it is full of soft, gentle things. They are on a far shore in a cool breeze, a fine drizzle falling, and he holds her hands in the sand and kisses her flower-soft face. Notice how nothing here is loud or dramatic. The drizzle, the sea breeze, the evening light, these are tender, hushed images, and that is the point. This is first love remembered as something delicate and almost sacred.

Two images carry the most weight. He says she wrapped her arms around him “like a creeper,” “dela wel” being the trailing vine that winds itself around a tree, so the comparison says she held him close and clinging, the way a vine and its tree grow into one. And he calls his own heart a lake, a still pool of water, that trembled at her gentle touch, the way the surface of calm water ripples when something brushes it. That is how deeply even her lightest touch moved him. By the last line he is still there, on that one evening, holding the sweetness of it. The song is not really about losing her, it is about how a single tender evening can stay with a person for the rest of his life.