Henry, here's how I read the lines in their accentual context:
While his HORSE moved, CROPping the dark TURF,
and
tell them i CAME, and NO one ANswered
The poem is clearly accentual. The question you ask is whether it is accentual trimeter or a combination of accentual trimeter and tetrameter. To me, neither of those two lines makes sense as accentual tetrameter, but they flow naturally as accentual trimeter. Why would you stress TELL or WHILE outside an accentual-syllabic setting?
In an accentual-syllabic setting, I'd read the first line as either pentameter or trimeter, depending on context, and the second as tetrameter:
while his HORSE/ ^ MOVED,/ ^ CROP/ping the DARK/ ^ TURF,/
or
while his HORSE/ moved CROP/ping the DARK TURF (spondee)/
and
TELL them/ i CAME,/ and NO/ one AN/swered (feminine)
I think that rather than trying to support an agenda, whether the agenda is proving that vocal and metrical stress ought to be one and the same or proving that every other syllable has to have some kind of metrical stress, and rather than imposing a reader's own regional dialect or interpretation of content onto his reading, it's the reader's challenge to try to find the poem's intended rhythm; that is, to try to read it as the poet wrote it to be read, always assuming enough skill on the poet's part that he has been able to effect a rhythm and still put across his intended meaning through the words he stresses.
While I find some of de la Mare's lines overwritten, I have no trouble picking up the poem's natural 3-beat rhythm as long as I don't try to force my own scansion on it.
Carol
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