Benedict Cumberbatch Reads Keats

I've become hooked on Sherlock, the BBC television series starring English actor Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role. I was idly standing around the local laundromat one night, waiting for my clothes to dry, when I turned to one of the TVs mounted on the wall. On it was a season 2 episode of Sherlock that featured a freakishly large hound scaring the life out of some poor soul. I immediately got sucked in. I've since started watching the series from the very beginning.
 

Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes.
Thank you, interwebs!

Watching Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes, one of the many things that strike me about him is his wonderful voice. Deep and measured, and delightfully articulating the witticisms and observations of this modern version of the storied sleuth, Cumberbatch's voice is both undeniably alluring and quite soothing. Its mellifluous tones have been put to marvelous use in a recitation of the John Keats' poem "Ode to a Nightingale." 

First published in 1820 in the Annals of the Fine Arts, John Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale" has gone on to become one of the most treasured works of lyrical poetry to have come out of the Romantic period. Supposedly inspired by the song of a nightingale that had built its nest in a tree near his home, Keats took pen to paper in the spring of 1819. What poured forth was a deeply personal reflection on mortality, nature, and the human condition.

Hear Cumberbatch recite "Ode to a Nightingale" by clicking on the video below.