Anthony Hopkins wistfully wishes Twitter a Happy Valentine’s Day

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:

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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.