What is the Inchcape Rock?

According to Beaming Notes, "The Inchcape Rock" is a poem in ballad form by the English poet Robert Southey. The reef referenced in the title and text is located near Scotland's Angus region, in the North Sea.

Beaming Notes says that "The Inchcape Rock" is 17 stanzas long and written in ballad form. The source states that the poem was inspired by a popular folk-tale revolving around the reef's danger and potential for shipwrecks. According to PoemHunter.com, Robert Southey was an influential and important poet in his time, a contemporary of Byron, Coleridge and Wordsworth, but has not had the lasting popularity those poets have.