Sanda Latha Lyrics by Keerthi Pasquel

[Chorus]

The moonbeam rises,
spreading close around the flowers in the morning.
The white flowers, like stars,
like a circle of stars attending her.
You are the one I’d compare to the moon, my girl,
the love that grew in me, my darling.
You are the one I’d compare to the moon, my girl,
the love that grew in me, my darling.

[Verse 1]

I am the window of the palace this morning,
sitting here watching your face with all my eyes.
I am the window of the palace this morning,
sitting here watching your face with all my eyes.
A secret love for you,
that was given to me, my precious one.
A secret love for you,
that was given to me, my precious one.

[Chorus]

The moonbeam rises,
spreading close around the flowers in the morning.
The white flowers, like stars,
like a circle of stars attending her.

[Verse 2]

Even though those tender thoughts of the mind pour out,
they cannot love, my dear, the blessed one.
Even though those tender thoughts of the mind pour out,
they cannot love, my dear, the blessed one.
On the lonely night, with the light of the moon,
fill me up, my darling.
On the lonely night, with the light of the moon,
fill me up, my darling.

[Chorus]

The moonbeam rises,
spreading close around the flowers in the morning.
The white flowers, like stars,
like a circle of stars attending her.
You are the one I’d compare to the moon, my girl,
the love that grew in me, my darling.
You are the one I’d compare to the moon, my girl,
the love that grew in me, my darling.

Laa la la laa, laa la la laa
Laa la la laa, laa la laa
Laa la la laa, lalala la laa
Laa la la laa, laa la laa,
Laa la la laa, laa la la laa
Lalala la laa, laa la laa

A young man is so taken with the girl he loves that the only thing big and beautiful enough to hold her is the night sky. He reaches straight for the moon to describe her, and from there the whole song becomes a picture of her made out of moonlight, flowers and stars.

The chorus opens with the moon rising and its soft light settling over a field of white flowers in the early morning. Then he turns those flowers into stars, and the stars into a court of attendants gathered around her, as if the heavens themselves arrange themselves to wait on this one girl. In Sinhala love song the moon is the standing image of a calm, gentle beauty, a light that soothes the dark rather than dazzles it, so when he says “you are the one I’d compare to the moon,” he is not just calling her pretty. He is saying her presence quiets him, and that this is the love that quietly grew inside him.

In the first verse he gives himself a strangely tender role. He calls himself the window of a palace, just sitting there in the morning, watching her face with everything in his eyes. A window does nothing but let the light in and look out at what passes, and that is exactly how he feels, content simply to gaze at her. He carries this as a secret love, something handed to him almost like a gift, too precious to say out loud. The second verse turns more aching. However much his heart pours out its gentle thoughts, those thoughts on their own cannot reach her, so on the lonely night he asks her, through the moon’s light, to come and fill the emptiness.

What stays with you is how gentle the longing is. There is no heat or demand in it, only a man who has found someone who calms him like moonlight, who would happily spend his mornings as a window just to keep her in view, and who, on the quiet nights when she is not there, looks up at the moon and asks it to stand in for her until she does.