A Voice with Lyrics interspersed with non-lyric melody

[Mike iLL Kilmer]

I thought I had worked this out at one point.

I want to be able to have

* Voice with Lyrics
* Just Melody
* Voice with Lyrics again

Where the lyrics can be a single lyricmode entity.

I thought that this could be achieved with context, but this isn’t working:

melody = \relative c'' {
 \clef treble
 \key c \major
 \time 3/4
 \set Score.voltaSpannerDuration = #(ly:make-moment 3/4)
 #(ly:expect-warning "cannot end volta")
   \new Voice = "chorus" {
     \voiceOne
     c2. | d | e | d |
     c |
   }
   e4 d c | e4 d c | e4 d c |
   \new Voice = "verse" {
     c2. | d | e | f |
     g | f | e | d |
   }
   e4 d c | e4 d c | e4 d c |
   \context Voice = "verse" {
     c2. | d | e | f |
     e | f | e | c |
   }
}


chorus =  \lyricmode {
 These are words they are.
}

verse =  \lyricmode {
 This one here will
 be the first verse.
 This one here will
 be the se -- cond.
}

What is an elegant way, please, to achieve this?