Ma Adare Lyrics by Shirly Waijayantha

I love you, but you are not mine
you never loved me
Your love lies hidden away
in those blue eyes of yours

On this still night my heart
races on, searching and searching for you
Come from the distance where you are
you were given to me only as distance

I love you

You are that moon rising far away
it is not near, like my own two hands, it is far
To keep, to hold safe
you were given to me only as distance

I love you

This is love that only runs one way, and the singer knows it. He opens by admitting the whole painful truth at once: “I love you, but you are not mine, you never loved me.” Whatever tenderness she might hold is “hidden away” in her blue eyes, a warmth he can see but never reach. From the very first line he is loving someone who will not love him back.

The still night is his worst hour. When everything is quiet his heart will not settle; it “races on, searching and searching” for her, and all he can do is call across the gap, come from wherever you are. But the line he keeps returning to is the ache of the song: “you were given to me only as distance.” Fate handed him this person not to hold but to long for, presence measured out purely as separation.

The closing image makes it complete. She is the moon rising far away, beautiful, luminous, and utterly out of reach, “not near like my own two hands.” One can gaze at the moon and even wish to guard and keep it, but no one can hold it. That is exactly his love: real, devoted, and forever at arm’s length. What the listener is left with is the quiet dignity of loving someone fully while accepting they will only ever be a distant light.