I have cobbled together a suggestion: Penderby Pit.dorico (690.1 KB)
I entered the rhythms on a 1-line percussion staff (with one note per word, not syllable), and pasted in the words. I then installed a 0-line staff that I got from this post, created a new player, copied the contents of percussion into it, and deleted the percussion staff.
No hard spaces are needed, and Dorico casts off normally. I did this myself so you can inspect the methods and copy if you wish. The meter could be hidden by adding & hiding an independent 6/8. I’m not sure the best way to omit the barlines.
More tech details
I was able to select all the text of the graphic in Preview on Mac and copy it into a text editor, so I barely even had to type anything!
I was curious about the composer/author, so I Googled “Penderby Pit” and the first (and only useful) hit was your post above with the text inside the graphic already indexed – less than 2 hours after you posted! (Is this creepy yet?)