In "A Psalm of Life," Longfellow employs trochaic tetrameter, in which each line consists of four "feet" comprised of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one. However, the final foot of the second and fourth line of each stanza consists of only one syllable:

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

Observe also that the final trochee of the first and third lines creates a multi-syllabic, or "feminine," rhyme.

Trochaic meter is less often used in English than iambic meter, in which each foot consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one. The reason for this is that the rhythm of our language most frequently, or naturally, falls into the iambic pattern.

Another poem in which Longfellow uses trochaic tetrameter is The Song of Hiawatha, with its famous opening lines:

On the shores of Gitche Gumee

Of the shining Big Sea-Water,

Stood Nokomis, the old woman,

Pointing with her finger westward.

This meter often creates, sometimes to the detriment of a poem's effectiveness, a kind of sing-song quality that can be easily parodied. However, the fact that it is relatively unusual in English does account for much of what is striking and memorable in Longfellow's better poems.