Was it something said, Something done, Vexed him? was it touch of hand, Turn of head? Strange! that very way Love begun: I as little understand Love's decay. When I sewed or drew, I recall How he looked as if I sung, --Sweetly too. If I spoke a word, First of all Up his cheek the color sprung, Then he heard. Sitting by my side, At my feet, So he breathed but air I breathed, Satisfied! I, too, at love's brim Touched the sweet: I would die if death bequeathed Sweet to him. "Speak, I love thee best!" He exclaimed: "Let thy love my own foretell!" I confessed: "Clasp my heart on thine Now unblamed, Since upon thy soul as well Hangeth mine!" Was it wrong to own, Being truth? Why should all the giving prove His alone? I had wealth and ease, Beauty, youth: Since my lover gave me love, I gave these. That was all I meant, --To be just, And the passion I had raised, To content. Since he chose to change Gold for dust, If I gave him what he praised Was it strange? Would he loved me yet, On and on, While I found some way undreamed --Paid my debt! Gave more life and more, Till all gone, He should smile "She never seemed Mine before. "What, she felt the while, Must I think? Love's so different with us men!" He should smile: "Dying for my sake-- White and pink! Can't we touch these bubbles then But they break?" Dear, the pang is brief, Do thy part, Have thy pleasure! How perplexed Grows belief! Well, this cold clay clod Was man's heart: Crumble it, and what comes next? Is it God? Why is "Herve Riel" in trochaic movement? It is heroic; why not then iambic? The poem opens in a mood of anxiety, a state of suspense, a fear of the certain loss of the fleet. When hope revives and Herve Riel is introduced in the words, "For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck amid all these," we have a line of mixed anapestic and iambic feet, expressive of resolution, courage, and confidence; so with the first and second lines of the sixth stanza expressing indignation at the pilots; also in much of his speech to the admirals. If the poet had led us sympathetically to identify ourselves with Herve Riel's resolution and endeavor, the metre would have been anapestic or iambic, but he gives the feeling of admiration for Herve Riel and we are made to contemplate how easily he performed his great deed, and hence the prevailing trochaic movement is one of the charms of the poem.