I’d argue that math, chemistry and music notation are separate symbolic languages. Verse isn’t. It’s still ordinary natural language, just organized into meaningful lines and stanzas rather than paragraphs.
So my comparison isn’t with formulas or diagrams, but with blockquotes. Markdown recognizes blockquotes because they’re a distinct form of text, not just a visual style. My question is whether verse deserves the same kind of recognition.
I should probably put together a proper proposal, including syntax and HTML output, for the Proposed Extensions wiki and link it here.