DAGDDAGDDAGD
On the first day of January, eighteen ninety-two,
GDEmA
they opened Ellis Island and they let the people through.
DAGD
And the first to cross the threshold, of that isle of hope and tears,
GDEmAA7
was Annie Moore from Ireland, who was all of fifteen years.
Chorus:
GADBm
Isle of hope, isle of tears, isle of freedom, isle of fears,
GEmAA7
but it's not the isle you left behind.
GADBm
That isle of hunger, isle of pain, isle you'll never see again,
GAD
but the isle of home is always on your mind.
DAGD
In a little bag she carried, all her past and history,
GDEmA
and her dreams for the future, in the land of liberty.
DAGD
And courage is the passport, when your old world disappears,
GDEmA
but there's no future in the past, when you're all of fifteen years.
Chorus:
G - Em - Em - A - DDAGD
When they closed down Ellis Island, in 1943,
GDEmA
seventeen million people had come there for sanctuary.
DAGD
And in Springtime when I came here, and I stepped onto it’s piers,
GDEmAA7
I thought of how it must have hurt, when you're only fifteen years.