Kremlin Regret

(By the light of the moon there arose such despair
  as the oil lamps burned in the heart of Red Square.
  For the sale of Alaska had seemed the right track--
  now the Kremlin decided they wanted it back.)

Alexander the Emperor strode up and down
fearing money alone would not preserve his crown.
So he summoned his chief Secretary of State
to see what could be done before it was too late.

“Secretary, please tell me, the land we just sold,
are there ways to reclaim it--can we be so bold?”
Said the keeper of state, the Grand Prince Constantine,
“We can try but I don’t think our wants will align.”

“I have heard,” Alexander said, sighing a sigh,
“the American press think it is a bad buy.”
“They consider it folly--it’s Seward’s great flaw,”
replied Prince Constantine as he stiffened his jaw.

Yet at two cents per acre (discarding flimflam),
it remained sale of century for Uncle Sam.
Russia sent Eduard Stoeckl to deal in due course,
but now Alex the Emperor had some remorse.

Grand Prince Constantine’s words were as clear as a bell:
“If you wanted to keep it, then why did you sell?”
“I was fearing a war with the British, you know!”
Alexander harrumphed like a walrus in snow.

“Plus the debt we’ve incurred with the landowners too,
  saw the need to raise capital long overdo.”
All at once Grand Prince Constantine started to pace;
Alexander had ounces of stress in his face.

Alexander went on in the dull of dim light:
I believe this land sale was a great oversight.”
“Our Siberian timber exceeds every hope,
  and our novel hemp techniques mean profit in rope.”

In the face of the Prince blunt light featured his joy;
“Then I take it you want me to be your envoy?”
“I am counting on you for unfailing detente,”
Alexander declared with unwavering want.

For a “polar bear garden” (or “Seward‘s ice box“),
Constantine made the trip to have face-to-face talks.
But as history shows he fell short from afar
when he sought a return for the sake of his Tsar.


40 Lines
Writer’s Cramp Winner
March 30, 2013

On March 30, 1867 U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward signed a treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska for $7 million. Despite the bargain price of roughly two cents an acre, the Alaskan purchase was ridiculed in Congress and in the press as "Seward's folly," "Seward's icebox," and President Andrew Johnson's "polar bear garden."