Miyuru Kalpana Lyrics by Victor Rathnayake

Sweet dreams lit up in my eyes
Amid rare and sweet rays of laughter, a heart smiled
At times it was soothed, at times it grieved
Amid a thousand unfamiliar fires, a heart withered away
Sweet dreams…

The snowy mountain is just a handful of sand to me
The great ocean, only a ripple of water.. //
From a bunch of thorns I will make flowers bloom
If it brings you peace…

Sweet dreams…

From a single drop of dew I will string pearls
From the sun I will draw coolness.. //
I will lie down on the points of swords
If it brings you peace…

Sweet dreams…

This is a song of pure, almost reckless devotion, the voice of someone telling the person they love that there is nothing they would not do for that person’s peace of mind. It opens softly, inside the head of a dreamer. Sweet dreams light up in the eyes, a heart smiles among rare flashes of joy, and then the mood turns. The same heart that was soothed is also grieving, and in the end it withers away among a thousand strange fires. Right from the start the song tells you this love carries both delight and pain together.

Then comes the heart of it, the promises. Each one names something impossible and offers to do it anyway. The towering Himalaya, the snowy mountain that Sinhala poetry treats as the very image of something vast and unmovable, the singer shrinks down to a mere handful of sand. The great ocean becomes nothing more than a single ripple. These are not boasts about being powerful. They are a way of saying that next to this love, even the biggest things in the world feel small and easy. The promises that follow are deliberately impossible: to make flowers bloom out of a bunch of thorns, to string pearls from one drop of dew, to draw coolness out of the burning sun, to lie down peacefully on the edges of swords. Each image pairs something painful or barren (thorns, the scorching sun, sword-points) with something gentle and beautiful (flowers, pearls, coolness, rest), and the singer offers to turn the one into the other.

The line that ties every promise together is the quiet refrain, “ඔබ සැනසේ නම්,” if it brings you peace. That small condition is what gives the song its ache. The singer is not asking for anything in return. The whole point is the other person’s comfort, and for that he would happily suffer the thorns and the blades himself. This is the kind of love that finds its own joy only in the loved one’s ease.

What stays with you is the gap between the impossible promises and that humble little “if.” The grand images, mountains turned to sand, dew turned to pearls, are huge, but the wish behind them is simple and tender. He wants the person he loves to be at peace, and he is willing to carry every kind of hurt to make it so. The title itself, “Miyuru Kalpana,” sweet dreams or sweet imaginings, hints that this devotion lives partly in the mind, a beautiful longing as much as a vow, which is exactly why the song feels so wistful even as it promises the world.