Hinahenne Hitha Heenendo

Is my heart smiling, or is it dreaming?
Thinking to itself, murmuring, who, oh who is this?
Like the wink of a star on a charmed night

Is my heart smiling, or is it dreaming?
Thinking to itself, murmuring, who, oh who is this?
The heart finds its comfort, wrapped up in love

Through the deep of night, did Cupid come, shooting flower-arrows down from the sky?
My cooled, quiet mind, in a sweet madness, lays down flowers of longing love
Soothed feelings, dewy-cool thoughts drifting upward
Like golden butterfly wings unfurling

I will rock you gently, hold you near like a fragrance
This dream is so sweet, lasting forever
Through the deep of night, did Cupid come, shooting flower-arrows down from the sky?
My cooled, quiet mind, in a sweet madness, lays down flowers of longing love

Like an unfinished poem
My heart keeps drawing pictures
You are mine, only mine
In the dream I see it
So now, whose are we?

In the dream, you are mine

A young man is so far gone in love that he can no longer tell where waking ends and dreaming begins. The song opens with him asking his own heart a question, is it smiling, or is it just dreaming? That uncertainty is the whole mood of the piece. He is in that floating, half-awake state where one person fills every thought, and he keeps murmuring to himself, who is this, who has done this to me. The feeling is gentle and a little dazed, the soft happiness of someone newly and deeply in love.

The Sinhala here leans on some lovely old imagery. When he asks if “Cupid came through the night shooting flower-arrows from the sky,” that is Manmatha, the Sinhala and Indian god of love, who is pictured carrying a bow strung with flowers. Getting hit by his flower-arrows is the classic way of saying you have suddenly, helplessly fallen for someone. So the line is really him saying, something pierced my heart in the dark and now I am undone by love. His “cooled, quiet mind” laying down “flowers of longing” carries that further, his restless thoughts have settled into a calm, sweet ache, and he offers that longing up almost like a small act of devotion.

The nature images keep the tenderness soft rather than fevered. Dewy thoughts drifting up, golden butterfly wings opening, these stand for a heart that feels light and weightless, lifted by happiness. When he promises to rock her gently and hold her close “like a fragrance,” he is reaching for the way a scent lingers near you without weight, that is how he wants to stay beside her, present and sweet and never crowding.

By the end the dream and the love have fully blurred together. He compares his heart to an unfinished poem that keeps sketching her face, and then comes the quiet ache underneath it all, “so now, whose are we?” He is not fully sure she is his in the waking world. But in the dream, at least, the answer is certain, you are mine. That is where the song leaves you, in the soft uncertainty of new love, holding tight to a happiness he is half afraid is only a dream.