EPISODE · Jan 11, 2026 · 11 MIN
Nothing beside remains
from Musical Poetry · host Michael Appelt
When power grows impatient with restraint, poetry remembers. This episode of Musical Poetry brings together three voices from three centuries in a single musical conversation:Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley — written in the shadow of Napoleon’s fall, reflecting on power after history has passed judgment.The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats — written after the First World War, sensing a world where balance fails and something ancient begins to stir.Coriolanus by William Shakespeare — offering the human voice of authority convinced that necessity excuses everything.Rather than adapting or modernising these works, this episode lets them speak to one another — as prophecy, personality, and aftermath.At the centre of the episode is an original musical piece built entirely from their words, arranged to reveal a pattern that repeats across history:how power rises, how it justifies itself, and how time eventually responds.This is not a political argument.It is not a prediction.It is a listening exercise, across centuries.Stay with the episode to the end, where the three voices converge and the question they leave us with becomes unavoidable.
What this episode covers
When power grows impatient with restraint, poetry remembers. This episode of Musical Poetry brings together three voices from three centuries in a single musical conversation:Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley — written in the shadow of Napoleon’s fall, reflecting on power after history has passed judgment.The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats — written after the First World War, sensing a world where balance fails and something ancient begins to stir.Coriolanus by William Shakespeare — offering the human voice of authority convinced that necessity excuses everything.Rather than adapting or modernising these works, this episode lets them speak to one another — as prophecy, personality, and aftermath.At the centre of the episode is an original musical piece built entirely from their words, arranged to reveal a pattern that repeats across history:how power rises, how it justifies itself, and how time eventually responds.This is not a political argument.It is not a prediction.It is a listening exercise, across centuries.Stay with the episode to the end, where the three voices converge and the question they leave us with becomes unavoidable.
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Nothing beside remains
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