looking for the origin of the quote "not with a whisper, but a bang", thought perhaps it was Poe, any information appreciated

-- Anonymous, August 12, 2001

Answers

T. S. Eliot "The Wasteland" "not with a bang but a whimper" which may be one of his countless borrowed bits reformed from something else. Someone else like Ogden Nash might have been tempted to reformulate Eliot's line with a twist. Definitely not Poe. His theories on creation and end of universe in "Eureka" favor a repeating cycle of expanding and contracting.

-- Anonymous, August 13, 2001

"The Hollow Men" (not "The Wasteland")

-- Anonymous, April 14, 2002