“My Papa’s Waltz” uses enjambment and end-stop in a very predictable way: usually, every other line is end-stopped. For instance, in the poem’s second stanza, lines 6 and 8 are both end-stopped:
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The stanza is divided into two halves, each of which contains a complete sentence. In lines 5-6, the speaker describes how he and his father knock down the pans as they romp around the kitchen. In lines 7-8, he describes his mother’s reaction: she can’t stop frowning. The end-stop in line 6 cleanly separates these two sentences. And similarly, the end-stop in line 8 cleanly separates this stanza from the next.
Indeed, each stanza in the poem ends on a period. As a result each stanza feels discrete, almost like a series of snapshots that come together to paint a picture of the speaker’s childhood. The poem is thus tightly organized and controlled. This is important: while the father may be drunk and out of control, missing steps in the waltz, the speaker is very much in control of the poem. The poem’s tightly organized end-stops thus underline the differences between father and son—and emphasize the tensions between them.
There is one place in the poem where the speaker breaks his pattern of enjambments and end stops. Line 3 is end-stopped, even though elsewhere in the poem the third line of each stanza is enjambed:
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
The speaker breaks the pattern here for a good reason. In line 3, he describes how he hangs on tightly to his father. The line is a testament to the love that the speaker feels for his father. The speaker remains attached to his father, despite the ambiguity of this dance. But the simile ("like death") also introduces some disturbing implications: the word “death” makes it seem like the speaker is in danger of hurting himself because of his attachment to his father. The end-stop emphasizes and underlines this implication. It makes the line feel abrupt and final—just like death. In other words, the end-stop makes it feel like the speaker’s commitment to his father isn’t simply a matter of touching dedication—it is, itself, a kind of death.