"I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening moon...."See in text(Strange fits of passion have I known)
The word “bent” functions on a couple of levels here. It suggests the love object’s gravitational pull, drawing the speaker from his usual path. On a deeper level, the language here describes how love “bends” a person from life’s usual ways and routines.
"The bowers where Lucy played;..."See in text(I travelled among unknown men)
Wordsworth chooses the image of a bower—a place shaded by trees—as the location of the muse for two reasons. Metonymically, the natural world is a classic place of poetic inspiration, particularly for Wordsworth. Metaphorically, the bowers usefully evoke the shadowy nature of poetic inspiration: the poet pulls the words from darkness into light.
