ISLE OF HOPE, ISLE OF
TEARS
SUNG BY THE IRISH TENORS, ELLIS ISLAND CD
On the first day of January
Eighteen Ninety two
They opened Ellis Island
And they let the people through
And the first to cross the threshold
Of the Isle of hope and tears
Was Annie Moore from Ireland
Who was all of fifteen years
Chorus
In her little bag she
carried
All her past and history
And her dreams for the future
In the land of liberty
And courage is the passport
When your old world disappears
'cos there's no future in the past
when you're fifteen years
Chorus
When they closed down
Ellis Island
In nineteen forty three
Seventeen million people
Had come there for sanctuary
And in springtime when I came here
And stepped onto it's piers
I thought of how it must have been
When you're only fifteen years
Chorus
The Isle of home
Is always on your mind
(Chorus)
Isle of hope,
Isle of tears
Isle of Freedom, Isle of fears
But it's not the Isle
You left behind
That Isle of hunger, Isle of pain
Isle you'll never see again
But the Isle of home
Is always on your mind