"The Dominion" (1877) is a poem by Australian poet J. Brunton Stephens. It is also known by the titles "The Dominion of Australia" and "The Dominion of Australia : A Forecast : 1877".

It was originally published in The Queenslander on 4 August 1877, and was subsequently reprinted in the author's poetry collections and a number of Australian poetry anthologies.

Critical reception

In his volume A History of Australian Literature H. M. Green noted that, in this poem, "eloquence becomes poetry, and no finer poem of its kind has come out of this country."A History of Australian Literature by H. M. Green, Angus and Robertson, revised edition 1984, p185 Accessed: 22 April 2026.

Writing about the role of poetry as a vehicle for political thought in the late 1800s, Jamie Grant noted that this "poem, written in 1877, was widely regarded as the best, as well as one of the earliest, of all the versified arguments for the coming Federation."

Publication history

After the poem's initial publication in The Queenslander in 1877 it was reprinted as follows:

The Queenslander, 21 December 1878 Miscellaneous Poems by J. Brunton Stephens, Watson Ferguson, 1880 Convict Once and Other Poems by J. Brunton Stephens, George Robertson, 1885 The Brisbane Courier, 8 August 1899 An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by Bertram Stevens, Angus and Robertson, 1907 The Golden Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Bertram Stevens, Angus and Robertson, 1909 A Book of Queensland Verse edited by J. J. Stable and A. E. M. Kirwood, Queensland Book Depot, 1924 The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse edited by Walter Murdoch, Oxford University Press, 1924 An Australasian Anthology : Australian and New Zealand Poems edited by Percival Serle, R. H. Croll, and Frank Wilmot, Collins, 1927 Poets of Australia : An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by George Mackaness, Angus & Robertson, 1946 The Queensland Centenary Anthology edited by Val Vallis and R. S. Byrnes, 1959 From the Ballads to Brennan edited by T. Inglis Moore, Angus & Robertson, 1964 Bards in the Wilderness : Australian Colonial Poetry to 1920 edited by Adrian Mitchell and Brian Elliott, Nelson, 1970 A Treasury of Colonial Poetry, Currawong, 1982

See also 1877 in Australian literature 1877 in poetry

References