Amphibrachic, Dactylic, and Drunk
A lot of the "The Dance" struts its stuff in a meter called amphibrachic trimeter. Seriously, we didn't make this up. Yeah, it kinda sounds like the name of some newly discovered dinosaur, and it makes our spell check go red-squiggle crazy, but it's a real thing. Luckily, though it has a fancy sounding name, this meter actually isn't all that complicated.
Amphibrachic basically means you've got a poem divided up into three-syllable feet (or beats), with the middle syllable of each foot being stressed and the ones on either side being unstressed. An amphibrach sound like daDUMda. If you want to hear one in real life, say the word "forever" out loud. You should hear forever—daDUMda.
As for "trimeter," that just means that each line is divided up into three ("tri-" means three) of these amphibrachic feet. Got it? We can sense some puzzled looks out there. Don't worry, here's an example from the poem. Read it out loud, accenting the syllables in bold, and you'll get the picture pretty quickly:
In Brueghel's great picture, The Kermess,
the dancers /go round, they /go round and (1-2)
So, there you go. Each line is divided neatly into three feet, with each foot having three syllables. Having the middle accent of each foot accented gives the entire poem a bouncy feel that helps to get across the feel of the peasant's dance. In fact, this meter is a bit like a waltz, only with the emphasis on the middle of the three beats instead of the first of the three beats. Here we get daDUMda; in a waltz (like this one) it's DUMdada.
Of course, these peasants aren't exactly trained dancers, and they've been drinking a ton of beer, so chances are their dance isn't quite as smooth as the rhythm of the opening two lines might imply. So, it makes total sense when Williams changes up the meter in the next two lines. Read them out loud, and you'll see what we mean.
Around, the squeal and the blare and the (3)
Hear how, after that first amphibrach, he starts putting the accent on the first syllable of the three instead of the middle one? This meter actually has a name too: dactylic. Despite popular belief, the name of this meter has nothing to do with pterodactyls (okay, nobody believes that). It actually comes from the Greek word for finger, and refers to the fact that each finger has three sections with the closest to the knuckle being the longest. (Just look at your fingers right now, and you'll see what we mean.) So, dactylic meter accents the first syllable, as opposed to the next two in each foot. In line three, this jarring shift in meter makes the words "squeal" and "blare" really pop, highlighting the abrasive sounds these onomatopoeic words are trying to get across.
Throughout the rest of the poem, Williams dips in and out of variations of these two meters. By weaving these two together and riffing on them as he goes along, WCW manages to capture the off-kilter nature of the dance (and the dancers) in the very rhythm of the poem. These dancers are a little drunk as they whirl around, so the meter is too. Go through and track the accents yourself, and see if you can figure out all the nifty tricks that meter master, WCW, is pulling off. Like the dancers, we bet it will make your head spin.