Where Roses would not dare to go — Heart-Clover

Dickinson planted heart-clovers first to test the soil, before her precious roses. She sent poems to some persons to test if they could read them, before she showed her affection. A smart guy is a riddler's enemy.

Where Roses would not dare to go,
What Heart would risk the way－
And so I send my Crimson Scouts
To sound the Enemy－

(F.1610/J.1582)

[1] Roses:: delicate flowers; precious and beautiful things, poems.
[2] Heart:: heart-clover, a plant with crimson flowers; Dickinson's affection.
[3] Crimson:: color of the heart-clover; color of the blood in an open heart. Scouts:: heart-clovers as scouts to test the soil.
[4] sound:: to test, probe. Enemy:: anything against roses.

in some fields the pretty red clover carpets the country with its crimson flowers. ─ Brittany & Its Byways (1869)

Heart-clover, or -Trefoil, "is so called," says W. Coles, in his Art of Simpling, p. 89, "not onely because the leaf is triangular like the heart of a man, but also because each leaf contains the perfect icon of an heart, and that in its proper colour, viz. a flesh colour. It defendeth the heart against the noisome vapour of the spleen." ─ On the Popular Names of British Plants (1863)