Like Dead Sea fruits, that tempt the eye,
But turn to ashes on the lips.

Moore’s image draws on the legend of the “Dead Sea fruit” (often linked to the so-called apples of Sodom): something outwardly beautiful and enticing that proves worthless or disgusting when tasted. The couplet captures a recurring Romantic-era moral contrast between appearance and reality—pleasures, ambitions, or loves that glitter at a distance but collapse into emptiness on contact. The sensory turn (“tempt the eye” / “ashes on the lips”) sharpens the lesson: desire is first recruited by sight and imagination, then corrected by experience. The metaphor is often applied to disillusionment—when what seemed promising is revealed as hollow, corrupt, or spiritually barren.