bang, not a whimper, / with a bang not with a whimper

The final stanza may be the most quoted of all of Eliot's poetry;

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Hollow Men


In dialogue with an absent friend, Pound writes:
bang, not a whimper, / with a bang not with a whimper
rebukes Eliot (the Possum) for the quiescence of his poem Hollow Men.

‘yet say this to the Possum: a bang, not a whimper, 
with a bang not with a whimper'