AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT POEM SIGNED: "A Nearly Next to Naught Song"

[@1957]. Manuscript. Fine. Fair copy AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT of a complete poem of 29 lines titled "A Nearly Next to Naught Song," completely in Frost's hand and SIGNED by him at the conclusion with the dedication "For Richard Hocking/once the author's pupil for/a lesson or two at Shady Hill/or rather on the porch on/Irving Street" on a 6-1/8" x 7-3/4" piece of paper. In the upper right corner in pencil Hocking has written "1957." The text is the poem published as "A Never Naught Song" in the 1962 volume IN THE CLEARING. In this version Frost has eliminated two lines--"Out of coming-in/Into having been!"--and made various other changes in words and punctuation. The Houghton Library at Harvard has a Frost notebook, undated, containing this poem titled as "A Next to Nearly Naught Song." It is one of two poems by Frost along with "All Revelations" (1938) concerned with descriptions of the quantum nature of atoms. (Inventory #: 012451)