Ukeadoodle

Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears - Whistling Doneys

[Verse 1]
       C            G       Am
On the first day of January, eighteen ninety-two,
     F            Dm              F              G
they opened Ellis Island and they let the people through.
        C                  G                  Am
And the first to cross the threshold, of that isle of hope and tears,
    F                Dm               F              G     G7
was Annie Moore from Ireland, who was all of fifteen years.
 
[Chorus]
        F             G              C                Am
Isle of hope, isle of tears, isle of freedom, isle of fears,
         F                         G
but it's not the isle you leave be--hind
             F               G                 C           Am
That isle of hunger, isle of pain, isle you'll never see a--gain,
        F               G              F    C
but the isle of home is always on your mind.
 
[Verse 2]
     C              G                Am
In a little bag she carried, all her past and history,
        F              Dm             F             G
and her dreams for the future, in the land of liber--ty.
    C              G                   Am
And courage is the passport, when your old world disappears,
           F          Dm           F                   G       G7
but there's no future in the past, when you're fifteen years.
 
[Chorus]
        F             G              C                Am
Isle of hope, isle of tears, isle of freedom, isle of fears,
         F                         G
but it's not the isle you leave be--hind
             F               G                 C           Am
That isle of hunger, isle of pain, isle you'll never see a--gain,
        F               G              F    C
but the isle of home is always on your mind.
[Instrumental]
   C     G    Am
   F    Dm   F      G
   C     G    Am
   F    Dm   F      G  G7
 
[Verse 3]
          C                 G          Am
When they closed down Ellis Island, in 1943,
    F               Dm              F               G
sev--enteen million people had come there for sanct--uary.
    C                 G                       Am
And in the springtime when I came here, and I stepped onto its piers,
  F                 Dm              F                   G    G7
I thought of how it must have been, when you're fifteen years.
 
[Chorus]
        F             G              C                Am
Isle of hope, isle of tears, isle of freedom, isle of fears,
         F                         G
but it's not the isle you leave be--hind
             F               G                 C           Am
That isle of hunger, isle of pain, isle you'll never see a--gain,
        F               G              F    C
but the isle of home is always on your mind.

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