sentences:  Richard Strier additionally notes the complexity of the word "flatter" not only within Sonnet 87 but within other Shakespeare sonnets as well.While the word has been used "in contexts of purely negative self-deception" as well as "in the context of providing genuine beauty," it is utilized within this poem as an "evocation of joy that is brief and delusive, but potent while it lasts".The phrase "as a dream doth flatter" correlates strongly with the Petrarchan view that earthly joys are briefly.