Menaka

Clutching a posy of coffee flowers
at the foot of the mighty Uthuwankande
Mammale my friend,
there's sobbing I can hear --
it's Menaka

By the Hingula waters
to sit you down,
with a silver hairpin
I once from a bungalow took
decorate those locks
already bedecked with coffee-flowers,
step back and admire, 
another day will not dawn
Menaka,
not for me

Clutching a posy of coffee flowers
at the foot of the mighty Uthuwankande
there's sobbing I can hear --
it's Menaka.

[At Bogambara, on the 7th day of May in the year 1864]

[translation of "මේනකා" from the collection "මීළඟ මීවිත" by Ruwan Bandujeewa]