Oddly enough, my first reaction was not toward my relatively new fascination with folk, but toward the familiar strains of the classical music I was trained for. I also thought of Pie Jesu (the Faure, not the Lloyd Weber, but same words), and the Crucifixion, a translation from 12th century Speckled Book, set to music by Samuel Barber:

At the cry of the first bird, they began to crucify thee, o Swan! Never shall lament cease because of that. It was like the parting of day from night. Ah, sore was the suffering borne by the body of Mary's son, but sorer still to him was the grief which for his sake came upon his mother.