Translating American Poems

Today I have a German test and before it, our professor collects our work books where we do a lot of the homework for practice. But I've never seen grades on them, or her looking through, and she hands them back the moment we finish the test. There's probably 20 pages per chapter and with about 15 of us, that's 300 pages! So I've been toying with this idea of how to confirm if she does. I thought about writing a love poem or saying something flirty in it, because that would both admit to her my very real crush on her and get some sort of reaction, but then I thought it might be creepy or just inappropriate. I mean, we have a good student-professor relationship as is, and I'm not really in love with her so I'd rather keep that for now. But then I thought I'd do something to pique her literary interest, like writing a poem. But I'm not a poet, so that would be option Z. I could copy some famous poem into it and that might get her attention, but maybe she'd only silently smile without any sort of comment and that wouldn't help my goal. Then my friend suggested I write a poem in German. It was a good thought, one I wish I had, but my German isn't good enough to confidently ask if they speak English so I can't really express anything with poetic diction.

UPDATE: Nothing. I figured I'd be able to tell even if she didn't write something, but I just got her usual smile which could win awards, but it didn't tell me that she'd read it or anything. I'll assume she didn't.

-Cantwhistle

So what I did was translate a few short parts of famous poems into German.

Emily Dickenson has a poem:

I'm Nobody
Who are you?
Are you--Nobody--too?

There's a bit more to it but I like that part.

Auf Deutsch:

Ich bin Niemand.
Wer bist du?
Bist du--Niemand--auch?

It doesn't have the same charm in German, but it's alright.

The second was by Robert Frost:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep.
And miles to go before I sleep.

That's the end of the poem (I did these from memory so forgive that they're incomplete) Auf Deutsch:

Die Walder sind schon, dunkel und tief,
Aber ich muss Versprechen halten
Und Meilen fahren vor ich schlafe.
Und Meilen fahren vor ich schlafe.

So that one didn't turn out real well, but I actually like the first line of it. It sounds very similar (an extra syllable, but I think the rhythm is kept. I'm not very good about rhythm though so maybe not) and retains the same meaning.  But I scrawled them in big blue sharpie across sections we didn't do, so she should see them and hopefully because it's in German, she'll scribble "Sehr Gut!"  on it or correct it or something. I'm sure others have translated it better than I have and she's certain to have heard at least one of them.