D A G D D A G D

       D            A        G               D
On the first day of January, eighteen ninety-two,
     G            D               Em              A
they opened Ellis Island and they let the people through.
         D                  A                 G                D
And the first to cross the threshold, of that isle of hope and tears,
    G                D                Em             A      A7            
was Annie Moore from Ireland, who was all of fifteen years.
 
Chorus: 
            G              A             D                 Bm
    Isle of hope, isle of tears, isle of freedom, isle of fears,
             G                Em      A    A7
    but it's not the isle you left behind.
                 G               A                 D           Bm
    That isle of hunger, isle of pain, isle you'll never see again,
             G              A              D
    but the isle of home is always on your mind.


     D              A                G            D
In a little bag she carried, all her past and history,
        G              D              Em           A
and her dreams for the future, in the land of liberty.
    D               A                  G              D
And courage is the passport, when your old world disappears,
    G                 D                        Em             A
but there's no future in the past, when you're all of fifteen years.

 
  Chorus:

 
  G - Em - Em - A - D

 
           D                 A          G  D
 When they closed down Ellis Island, in 1943,
  G                 D               Em             A
 seventeen million people had come there for sanctuary.
         D                 A               G                 D
 And in Springtime when I came here, and I stepped onto it’s piers,
     G               D                           Em            A      A7
 I thought of how it must have hurt, when you're only fifteen years.