Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
How fast she nears and nears!
Are those her sails that glance in the sun,
Like restless gossameres?

Are those her ribs through which the sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that woman all her crew?
Is that a Death? and are there two?
Is Death that woman's mate?

Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.

The naked hulk alongside came,
And the twain were casting dice;
'The game is done! I've won! I've won!'
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

The sun's rim dips; the stars rush out:
At one stride comes the dark;
With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea,
Off shot the spectre bark.

We listened and looked sideways up!
Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
My lifeblood seemed to sip!
The stars were dim, and thick the night,
The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white;
From the sails the dews did drip –
Till clomb above the eastern bar
The horned moon, with one bright star
Within the nether tip.

One after one, by the star-dogged moon,
Too quick for groan or sigh,
Each turned his face with ghastly pang,
And cursed me with his eye.

Four times fifty living men,
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.

Their souls did from their bodies fly –
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul, it passed me by,
Like the whizz of my crossbow!" (III.9-17)

Whew, this is one doozy of a lyrical ballad. Our weary mariner is recounting his crime (he killed an albatross—so innocent, so young) and then his crew starts to drop like flies. Here, death or "Life-in-Death" as Coleridge dubs her, arrives on a ship that could be the crew's hope of survival (they're currently dying of thirst and starvation), but instead, she scoops up their souls and leave the mariner their bodies.

So much Gothic goodness in this passage. We've got our supernatural, we've got our dark-and-scary, we've got our murder. Need a little isolated vulnerability on the high seas? Yep. Or a crazy curse? It's all here.

There's a lot going on here. First, take a look at this poem's rhyme scheme to get a sense of how it's coloring the other literary devices.

Once you've done that, think about this gem: instead of straight-up describing the personified figure of death, he asks a series of rhetorical questions. This adds to the sense of incredulity the speaker feels while giving us a good sense of what's approaching. And what's approaching is not pretty.

He goes on to describe her with some killer similes (skin "as white as leprosy") that cement us firmly in the Gothic. It doesn't hurt that this supernatural creature gloats about killing the mariner's crew then disappears without a trace.