Though he exudes a certain romanticism, Anthony Hopkins isn’t perhaps anybody’s idea of a romantic. The dude was Hannibal Lecter, for Christ’s sake. Still anyone who’s watched Remains of the Day, Titus, or, hell, even Westworld knows the man has a mellifluous way with words. So who better to swoon us with a bit of 19th-century poetry on the sweetest day of the year (besides Sweetest Day, of course)?
In a video posted to his Twitter account, Sir Hopkins recites a famous selection from poet Ernest Dowson’s “Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam.”
They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.
He follows the poem with a sonorous, “Happy Valentine’s Day,” delivering it with a sighing sense of melancholy that’s perhaps appropriate to Dowson’s themes of alcoholism and ennui. Dowson, for the record, died penniless at 32, and a decade earlier had tried to marry an 11-year old.
Also, since there’s nothing more romantic than fresh produce, Hopkins hashtagged the post with #TheOriginalFarmersMarket, the L.A. institution that serves as the not-so-romantic backdrop.
Regardless, it’s still the sweetest thing you’ll hear all day.