Gestalt

 It occurred to me that a meter is a gestalt. The word is usually used for visual information. Seeing a face, we don't see individual features, but a face. Of course, we can describe a nose, etc... but those 19th century description of peoples faces feature by feature don't work all that well. 

Faces vary a bit, but fall into the same gestalt. The 11 syllable Spanish line is essentially a shape, not a collection of 11 syllables. 

Here is the most canonical pattern: 

x/xxxx/xxx/x   [accents on 2, 6, 10, evenly spaced]

El dulce lamentar de dos pastores 

Another common pattern: 

xxx/xxx/x/x [accents on 4, 8, 10]

The other patterns are accents on 1 6 10, or 3, 6 10.  

The gestalt is the feel of the meter, not the number of syllables, since we aren't counting them unless we are unsure. Even then, if we are off by a syllable, it shouldn't even matter that much.

Here's one with a stress clash:

Siempre la claridad viene del cielo:  1,6, 7!, 10. It's odd. We hardly ever get stresses on 5,7,9. Notice that there is still a stress on 6.