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Famous Sternest Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Sternest poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous sternest poems. These examples illustrate what a famous sternest poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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by Burns, Robert
...nonsense swell;
Nae snap conceits, but that sweet spell
 O’ witchin love,
That charm that can the strongest quell,
 The sternest move....Read more of this...



by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...meet his master now and here, 


XIX.
With thoughts like these was Custer's mind engaged.
The gentlest are the sternest when enraged.
All felt the swift contagion of his ire, 
For he was one who could arouse and fire
The coldest heart, so ardent was his own.
His fearless eye, his calm intrepid tone, 
Bespoke the leader, strong with conscious power, 
Whom following friends will bless, while foes will curse and cower.



XX.
Again they charge! and now a...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...battle-bulletin, 
The Indian ambuscade, the craft, the fatal environment,
The cavalry companies fighting to the last in sternest heroism, 
In the midst of their little circle, with their slaughter’d horses for breastworks, 
The fall of Custer and all his officers and men. 

Continues yet the old, old legend of our race, 
The loftiest of life upheld by death,
The ancient banner perfectly maintain’d, 
O lesson opportune, O how I welcome thee! 
As sitting in dark days, 
Lone...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...the Oconee I live; 
A Yankee, bound by my own way, ready for trade, my joints the limberest joints
 on earth, and the sternest joints on earth; 
A Kentuckian, walking the vale of the Elkhorn, in my deer-skin leggings—a
 Louisianian or Georgian; 
A boatman over lakes or bays, or along coasts—a Hoosier, Badger, Buckeye;
At home on Kanadian snow-shoes, or up in the bush, or with fishermen off
 Newfoundland; 
At home in the fleet of ice-boats, sailing with the rest and ta...Read more of this...

by Bronte, Anne
...est abode
Must all his powers employ.

Bright hopes and pure delights 
Upon his course may beam,
And there amid the sternest heights,
The sweetest flowerets gleam; --

On all her breezes borne
Earth yields no scents like those;
But he, that dares not grasp the thorn
Should never crave the rose.

Arm, arm thee for the fight!
Cast useless loads away:
Watch through the darkest hours of night;
Toil through the hottest day.

Crush pride into the dust,
Or thou must need...Read more of this...



by Strode, William
...ll no injury:
What though a knife I give, your beauty's charme
Will keepe the edge from doing any harme:
Wool deads the sternest blade; and will not such
A weake edge turne, meeting a softer touch?...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...in"

But "Never" far as Honor
Withdraws the Worthless thing
And impotent to cherish
We hasten to adorn --

Of Death the sternest function
That just as we discern
The Excellence defies us --
Securest gathered then

The Fruit perverse to plucking,
But leaning to the Sight
With the ecstatic limit
Of unobtained Delight --...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...at being names
Still more distinguished, like the games
Of children. Turn our sport to earnest
With a visage of the sternest!
Bring the real times back, confessed
Still better than our very best!

II

"When I last saw Waring..."
(How all turned to him who spoke— 
You saw Waring? Truth or joke?
In land-travel, or seafaring?)

"...We were sailing by Triest,
Where a day or two we harboured:
A sunset was in the West,
When, looking over the vessel's sid...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...h the ocean wave; 
 Ye violets will nourish still the flower that April gave; 
 Upon your ambient tides will be man's sternest shadow cast; 
 Your waters ever will roll on when man himself is past. 
 
 All things that are, or being have, or those that mutely lie, 
 Have each its course to follow out, or object to descry; 
 Contributing its little share to that stupendous whole, 
 Where with man's teeming race combined creation's wonders roll. 
 
 The poet, too, will...Read more of this...

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