Sternlier

To whom, as more amazed and sternlier stung, / Faltering, the traitor urged this wild address: […]

And haply, with the cream of sacred lore / Was blent some modern’s sweet but thrilling tale, / That made his eye gleam sternlier than before,— / A tale of Times when Scotland’s stifled wail, / And Persecutor’s shout, were blent on every gale.

In vain she’d sought through many a striving hour / The word to break which stole the people’s bread; / His freezing brow did but the darker lower, / While sternlier to his will the tax he wed.

Accept the swift and rueful death, / Taught, somewhat sternlier than is wont, what waits / The ambiguous creature,—how the one black tuft / Steadies the aim of the arrow just as well / As the wide faultless white on the bird’s breast.

I know no law that sternlier deals / With strangers than with kindred blood.

Even when Luther purged, / Trimmed the sacred fire, / Sternlier Calvin urged, / Then did he expire.

NOW not alone against a world on fire / Must preparation speed. Sure, the great gun / Must be supplied ton on unnumbered ton / Of quick munition. Faster, farther, higher / The deadly plane must flash, and the entire / Substance and spirit of the land be won / For that impregnable, last bastion / Which freedom’s dear necessities require. / But, sternlier still, for this we must prepare: / To cast out devils, yet refuse to be / Devils in turn; […]

Checking the glorious hand’s flaunting of lovelier leisure, now for some stubborner work sternlier it fashions the stone.