this is the way the world ends poem

The poem containing the famous lines "This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper" is "The Hollow Men" by T. S. Eliot. It was published in 1925 and is one of Eliot's major works, capturing themes of emptiness, despair, and spiritual desolation in the aftermath of World War I. The poem reflects the disillusionment of the era and ends with the repeated phrase emphasizing a quiet, anticlimactic end rather than a dramatic one. Here is the final stanza with the famous lines: 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. The poem as a whole explores the hollowness and meaninglessness experienced by people, conveyed through imagery of dead land, fading stars, and broken kingdoms.