Dasa Nilupul Thema Lyrics by Gunadasa Kapuge

Your eyes are wet, like blue water lilies
your teardrops scattering like strings of pearls
your lips full of sighs, sobbing softly
weep, my garland of flowers
weep, my garland of flowers

In the book of a silent heart it was written
those lovely songs are not mine to give
your tears, here in my heart
keep drawing out endless verses
keep drawing out endless verses

I have no corals, no precious gems
all I want in my hands are those teardrop-pearls
like drops of morning dew upon a flower
your tears rest there on your cheek
your tears rest there on your cheek

A man is looking at the woman he loves while she cries, and instead of telling her to stop, he finds her tears unbearably beautiful and tender. The whole song is him speaking gently to her in the middle of that moment, calling her “mal maliye,” my garland of flowers, which is a soft Sinhala term of endearment for someone precious and delicate. He watches her weep and turns that grief into something he wants to hold onto.

The images all circle around one idea: her tears are jewels. He looks at her wet eyes and sees “nilupul,” blue water lilies, which in Sinhala song are the standing picture of beautiful, soulful eyes. Then the falling tears become “muthuwel,” strings of pearls, scattering loose. He says he has no corals and no gems to offer her, the things a man might give to win a woman, and that he does not want them anyway. The only treasure he wants in his hands is her teardrop-pearls. It is a strange and moving thing to say, that her sorrow is worth more to him than any jewel.

In the middle verse he admits something humbler. He does not have “soduru gee wel,” lovely strings of songs, to give her. What he means is that he is no great poet, he cannot offer her grand verses. But her tears, sitting in his heart, write the verses for him. Her sorrow is the poem he could never compose himself.

The closing image is the gentlest of all. He compares the tear resting on her cheek to “thushara pini,” cool morning dew settling on a flower petal. Dew on a flower is fragile and lovely and gone by midday, and that is how he sees this moment of her crying, painfully beautiful and fleeting. By the end you understand that the song is less about her sadness and more about how deeply he feels for her, so deeply that even her tears look like something to cherish.