The poem pictures life as a long trek through a harsh desert. Days pass, the sand hills keep coming, and the traveler walks with dragging feet, so thirsty the throat feels choked. In the middle of all this, the speaker says, love is the oasis: a place of shade, rest and affection.
But the second half turns more worried. The speaker asks whether every traveler actually finds an oasis, and the question sounds doubtful. Then comes the central idea: it is better to find nothing than to see a mirage. A false promise of love, the poem suggests, hurts more than having no hope at all, because the exhausted walker is led on and then let down. The last line works as a plea, almost a warning: if you can't be a real oasis for someone, don't pretend to be one.
The mood is weary and aching, with a quiet bitterness at the end. The short, broken lines and trailing dots mimic slow, tired steps, and the speaker seems to be writing from the pain of having trusted something that wasn't real.