Sternliest

I tooke delights / In plucking Apples from t’Heſperian Trees, / Which Eating, I grew Learn’d: adde to All theſe / My Priuate Readings, which more School’d my Soule, / Then Tutors, when they ſternliest did Controll / With Frownes or Rods: […]

The law is holier than a sage’s prayer; / The godlike power bestowed on men demands of them a godlike care; / And noblest gifts, if basely used, will sternliest avenge the wrong, / And grind with slavish pangs the slave whom once they made divinely strong.

In them [women], hypocrisy itself can charm: / It makes our young devotion doubly warm, / Draws while it drives, lures while it whispers “Go!” / Means “Yes!” when sternliest it answers “No!” / Request a kiss—at once a negative / Their lips of coral sternly frame!—but if / You note their eyes, the answer there belies it, / And he who doubts me, well, suppose he tries it?

None sang of Love more nobly; few as well; / Of Friendship none with pathos so profound; / Of Duty sternliest-proved when myrtle-crowned; / Of English grove and rivulet, mead and dell: […]

Two-syllabled adverbs may have these forms, but they are unusual: positive sternly comparative sternlier superlative sternliest