What is the meter of the following poetic passage?

Just for a handful of silver he left us,

Just for a riband to stick in his coat-

Robert Browning

Answer: Dactylic meter.

Explanation:

In poetry, meter is the pattern of the beats. It is also referred to as a 'foot'. There are certain number of syllables in each foot (often two or three). Different types of meter have different patterns of stressed/unstressed syllables.

Dactyl meter, found in these lines from Robert Browning's poem "The Lost Leader", has the first syllable stressed and the second and third unstressed. The pattern is the following:

Just for a handful of silver he left us

Just for a riband to stick in his coat.