There comes the gentle steps of spring / So delicate of hues & fair / Rich greens—& glad birds glossy wing / Fanning the freshling hedges there1832-1837, John Clare, “O quiet living solitude”, in Poems of the Middle Period, →ISBN, page 52:
He blundered through the lighted stretch of fresh strewn hours, / Nor looked to profit at glad life in freshling flowers1907, Vernon Wade Wagar, Pocket Tokens, and Other Poems, page 20:
freshling
noun
Etymology From fresh + -ling.
1
An inexperienced person; a neophyte.
Mere freshlings are they, blank of brow, / Who read not how / Its prime had passed before / Their raw equipments, scenes, and says / Afflicted its memoried face, / That had seen every larger phase / Of human ways / Before these filled the place.1922, Thomas Hardy, “A House with a History”, in Late Lyrics and Earlier: