Jog On, Jog On Lyrics
A four-line walking song with a plain message: keep going along the path and cross the stile cheerfully, because a merry heart makes the whole day easy and a sad one makes a mile feel long.
Jog On, Jog On
Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way,
And merrily hent the stile-a;
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/jog-on-jog-on/
- Type
- Poems for Children
- Written by
- William Shakespeare
- Tune
- Brisk and swinging, in time with walking feet
- Best for ages
- 3 to 9 years
Hand Motions and Actions
| When you sing | Do this |
|---|---|
| Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way | Walk or jog on the spot, swinging your arms. |
| And merrily hent the stile-a | Lift one knee high, as if stepping over a stile, then the other. |
What Does Jog On, Jog On Mean?
The song is about walking. The foot-path way is a path for walkers. A stile is a set of steps over a fence or wall so that people can cross a field without opening a gate. Hent is an old word meaning to take hold of, and also to clear or get past, so to hent the stile is to get over it. The little -a at the end of stile-a and mile-a is only a song sound, added to keep the rhythm and the rhyme.
The second pair of lines is the point. A merry heart is a cheerful one, and the song says it "goes all the day", meaning it carries on without tiring. A sad heart, in the song's words, tires in a mile. Anyone who has walked with a grumbling child will know it is true.
History and Origin
The book credits the song to William Shakespeare. It is sung by Autolycus, a cheerful rogue and peddler in The Winter's Tale (Act 4, Scene 3), as he walks along the road. Shakespeare's plays were first collected in the 1623 First Folio, which prints the song with the spelling "Iog-on".
The song comes from the volume of children's favourites edited by Hamilton Wright Mabie, which carries copyright dates of 1909, 1917 and 1919.
Learning Activities
- Walk to the rhythm: go for a short walk and say the four lines, stepping on each beat.
- Build a stile: set up a low step or a row of cushions to step over, and call it the stile.
- Merry heart ideas: ask each child what helps them feel cheerful on a long walk, such as a song, a snack or a game.
- Find the sound-ends: listen to the endings stile-a and mile-a and add the same sound to other rhyming words.