A former colleague wrote to confess that she could no longer remember
all the lines of the little mnemonic she (and also I) had learned at
school, but did manage to recall the following:
 
Iambic comes with steady pace
Next the trochee takes its place
(then something about the dactyl with clattering feet)
(then another line completely forgotten)
And last but not least comes the rare anapaest

Can anyone help complete this little school rhyme (apparently fairly
widely used in post-War Britain), and even better tell me whether it
has been published anywhere, or who first coined it?

Thanks Mike

I have never heard your mnemonic, and I've found no references to it
online, but here's a similar one that was written by Samuel Taylor
Coleridge:

Trochee trips from long to short,
From long to short in solemn sort.
Slow spondee stalks; strong foot yet ill able
Ever to come up with Dactyl tri-syllable.
Iambics march from short to long--
With a leap and a bound the swift Anapests throng.

http://info.togosolo.com/mobile/thread.php?topic_id=26

The lady concerned was so determined that she dug out her old
schoolbooks and has come up with the right answer herself, which is:

Iambus comes with steady pace;

Swift the trochee takes his place;

Follows the dactyl on pattering feet;

The amphibrach next with its stressed middle beat;

And the last in the line but not least

Is the rare anapaest.

Thanks very much for the Coleridge version, which manages to include
the spondee too!