Hansarajiniye Lyrics by Shirly Waijayantha

When it touches the heart, when it settles in the heart
You are in the lake of my mind
You, the swan gliding there
You are in the lake of my mind

Blossoming, giving off fragrance
You spread my heart wide open
Filling my heart with joy
You have settled in my heart
O swan-queen

When it touches the heart, when it settles in the heart

Seeking pollen, spreading its wings
Joining a flock of birds
Wandering in search of you
Asking where I should look
O swan-queen

When it touches the heart, when it settles in the heart

The whole song lives inside one image: the beloved as a swan gliding on the lake of the singer’s mind. In Sinhala poetry the “sith wila,” the lake of the mind or heart, is a favourite way to picture the inner self as calm water, and here she is the graceful hansa, the swan, moving across it. She does not just visit his thoughts; she swims in them, so that his very mind has become her pond.

He calls her his hansarajini, his swan-queen, and the tenderness is quiet rather than fevered. When love touches his heart and settles there, she blooms in it like a flower giving off scent, opening him up and filling him with a gentle joy. This is devotion at rest, not longing in pain, the feeling of someone who has found the person who belongs in the still centre of him.

Only in the last verse does a little restlessness enter. Like a bird gathering pollen and joining the flock, he pictures himself wandering, spreading his wings, searching, not sure where to find her. The swan and the seeking bird are the two halves of the same love: she is the serene presence already living in his mind, and he is the one still flying about the world trying to reach her. What lingers is that soft, searching sweetness of a heart that has found its swan-queen and cannot stop looking for her.