Rogee Dese Lyrics by Karunarathna Diwulgane

Why do you delay in letting your eyes rest on these ailing eyes?..
on the day you are not near, how could the heart’s fever ever cool?..

On the close bed, amid party-talk, the burning heart is made well..
loneliness wraps around, and from the corners of the eyes hot tears spill..

Even when I receive the touch of the physician’s hands, no comfort comes near..
wanting nothing else, longing only for your face, your beauty is like a medicine…

A lovesick song in which the beloved is the only cure. The singer’s eyes are ailing, and he pleads, why do you delay in letting your gaze rest on them? Without her near, he asks, how could the fever in his heart ever cool? Longing is treated, quite literally, as an illness.

The middle contrasts closeness and loneliness. On the close bed, amid party-talk, his burning heart is soothed and made well, being near her heals him. But when loneliness wraps around him instead, hot tears spill from the corners of his ailing eyes. Her presence is medicine; her absence is the sickness returning.

The last verse completes the metaphor. Even the touch of the physician’s hands (jeevaka, after Jivaka, the Buddha’s famous doctor) brings no comfort near; he wants no other remedy at all. Longing only for her face, he says, your beauty is like a medicine, she alone can heal what ails him. Sung by Karunarathna Diwulgane, composed by Upali Jayalath to words by Mahinda Disanayake, it is a tender song about lovesickness as a real illness, and the beloved’s face as its only cure.