Fanny Brawne: I still don’t know how to work out a poem.
John Keats: a poem needs understanding through the senses. The point of diving in the lake is not immediately to swim to the shore but to be in the lake; to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not work the lake out; it is an experience without thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept mystery.

More of what John had to say about negative capability: Poetry is not about seeking knowledge it is about sensing beauty. Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason ….. with the great poets the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration ….. , if one focuses on answers or systems of thought in a poem it narrows the mind to a narrow private path, not a “thoroughfare for all thoughts.” … what is needed is an openness to the world — negative capability is what the great poets like Shakespeare had; the
rejection of set philosophies and preconceived systems of nature. … what we can know about the world is limited, and Keats rejected the artist’s attempt to analyze, rationalize, or categorize the world. He demanded that the poet be receptive rather than searching for fact or reason, and to not seek absolute knowledge of every truth, mystery, or doubt.