Hi All,
Thanks for the replies and suggestions and sorry for the late reply from me! no internet access at home at the moment...
It's actually in relation to Anna, mother of Mary who laments her barreness...and the idea of barreness seemed to fit in with the bleakness of the season etc. We thought of using the Lamentations of Jeremiah, but the text isn't hugely relevent and while there are many beutiful settings (Tallis, Argricola etc etc), they're all quite long...
Marion - thanks for the suggestion - sounds great - unfortunately I think the song might be a bit too specific to use for this particular service though...
Howard & Nick - thanks for your suggestions too! The Earl of Errol I'd thought of but I think it really needs to be female barreness... It's quite interesting in itself that the subject doesn't appear regularly in songs... too much of a taboo I suppose...

Really any kind of non-specific lamentation might do...
Many thanks once again for all your help and happy Monday.

Trewk.