Wasanthayata Paara Kiyana

Showing the way to spring
kindling from the corner of your eyes
the lovely feelings of love
I feel them, I sense them, coming from you

Roaming the cluster of blossoming flowers
a swarm of bees soothing the heart
might someone fool you and carry you off? if that is not so,
I will offer you the lovely feelings of love

Showing the way to spring

Tell me, that corner of your eye,
is it the very love I long for?
Will you fool me and leave, my heart fearful?
if not, I offer you my loving heart, with a single mind

Showing the way to spring

This is a love that is almost sure of itself, but not quite. The singer reads his answer in her eyes: from “the corner of your eyes” a light kindles, “the lovely feelings of love,” and he feels certain those feelings are coming from her. She is the one “showing the way to spring,” wasantha, the season of blossoming and romance, so that her very glance seems to promise that love is on its way.

The imagery around this is soft and natural. He pictures a “cluster of blossoming flowers” and a “swarm of bees soothing the heart,” the classic Sinhala image of lovers drawn to one another the way bees are drawn to blooms. But into that pretty picture creeps his one worry: might someone else “fool you and carry you off”? If not, he says, he will lay all his tender feelings before her.

The last verse turns that worry into a direct, vulnerable question. Tell me plainly, he asks, is the love I read in your eyes truly the love I long for? Or will you deceive me and leave me afraid? And then he makes his offer without hedging: if you will not, “I offer you my loving heart, with a single mind,” eka sithin, wholeheartedly, holding nothing back. What the listener is left with is that hopeful, slightly anxious moment on the edge of love, a person who believes he is loved in return and is ready to give everything, if only she will confirm it.