The Grammar of English Grammars · Chapter 368Order II.—Trochaic Verse
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In Trochaic verse, the stress is laid on the odd syllables, and the even ones are short. Single-rhymed trochaic omits the final short syllable, that it may end with a long one; for the common doctrine of Murray, Chandler, Churchill, Bullions, Butler, Everett, Fowler, Weld, Wells, Mulligan, and others, that this chief rhyming syllable is "additional" to the real number of feet in the line, is manifestly incorrect. One long syllable is, in some instances, used as a foot; but it is one or more short syllables only, that we can properly admit as hypermeter. Iambics and trochaics often occur in the same poem; but, in either order, written with exactness, the number of feet is always the number of the long syllables.
Examples from Gray's Bard.
(1.)
"Ruin | seize thee,| ruthless | king! Confu | -sion on | thy ban |-ners wait, Though, fann'd | by Con | -quest's crim | -son wing. They mock | the air | with i | -dle state. Helm, nor | hauberk's | twisted | mail, Nor e'en | thy vir | -tues, ty | -rant, shall | avail."
(2.)
"Weave the | warp, and | weave the | woof, The wind | -ing-sheet | of Ed | -ward's race. Give am | -ple room, | and verge | enough, The char | -acters | of hell | to trace. Mark the |year, and | mark the | night, When Sev | -ern shall | re-ech | -o with | affright." "The Bard, a Pindaric Ode;" British Poets, Vol. vii, p. 281 and 282.