The long day I shope me for to abide,
For nothing els, and I shall nat lie,
But for to looke upon the daisie,
That well by reason men it call may
The daisie, or els the eye of day."
Chaucer gives us the true etymology of the word in the last line. Ben Jonson, to confirm it, writes with more force than elegance,
"Days-eyes, and the lippes of cows;"
that is, cowslips; a "disentanglement of compounds,"—Leigh Hunt says, in the style of the parodists:
"Puddings of the plum
And fingers of the lady."