Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.

Stern

Stern as a stone bust of Augustus Cæsar.
—Anonymous

Stern as block of bogwood oak.
—R. D. Blackmore

Stern as Vengeance.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton

An iron Queen,
Stern as her flinty judgment seat of doom.
—Lord De Tabley

Stern as Richard in Bosworth Field.
—Pierce Egan

Stern as Pluto’s sceptre.
—John Keats

Stern as a mailed knight that had been grappling death.
—Gerald Massey

Stern as the noon of night.
—Gerald Massey

As stern as e’er was knitted in the folds of rancorous discontent.
—Richard Sheil

Stern and still
As hours and years that change and anguish fill.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne

Stern as Medea in her dragon car.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne