SUNDAY PUNCH 3

Awake to the Truth, My Lanka

Hide not thy fears behind thy veiled curtain of tears Or shield your eyes from damning horrors Committed senseless in thy name.

Awake to the Truth, My Lanka

Look not askance at the terrible deeds

Or turn away from grotesque works of warped acts Wrought brazen in thy lambent flame

And in thy name

Doth thou not feel

The blood flow from thy aggrieved breast That shrieks not in pain but seeks protect Truth’s deflowerers;

And bids save them from all moral blame By pinning upon their pure snow white fleece The rare red rose of righteousness Where a rose never bled so red

And drooped in shame defiled .

Let long denied dawn break, My Lanka

Upon an Age of Wisdom and Truth

And, with the rising sun, stiffen thy resolve

To make stern Laws reign and sweet Justice prevail Akin to the days when Enlightenment held sway And Freedom breathed in this land once Devas graced.

Awake to the Truth, My Lanka

And cleanse away with thy pristine tears Time’s ignoble stain That marks us all with the same tarred brush sans blush As children of the soil where innocence bled

When inviolate purity perverse lust beheld;

Or forever sleep and be raped

Without a murmur of protest

Though the abomination resounds raising sacrilege And makes the divine throne rumble with unbridled rage.

Awake to Reality, My Lanka

Arise to the challenge that waits,

That calls thee this hour to vitiate

And triumph accursed twilight‘s grim fate

For thy sons’ and daughters’ sake

Turn the tide and hate’s hell fires slake

Before it’s late, Awake O Mother

Awake to the Truth, My Lanka

Or doth thou fear death?

For if thou dread death

Death that stalks and is ever in our midst

And marks time till Providence calls for the sparrow’s fall Death that comes to all will come to thee too Whether thou hold thy peace and remain apathetic

Or find release from remorse by taking the course true Death will come that comes but once to the brave

But visits oft the coward’s bed

Will descend on thy door unbade

And the reaper’s scythe will fall on thy head Don Manu