In the middle of poetic chant, Isolde finds spirit (7)
I believe the answer is:
ethanol
'spirit' is the definition.
(I know that spirit can be written as ethanol)
'in the middle of poetic chant isolde' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
an anagram of 'the' is 'eth' which is located in the answer.
'of' could be 'o' and 'o' is found in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'finds' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ethanol that I've seen before include "Ethyl alcohol" , "Kind of alcohol - not hale (anag)" , "porter uses it" , "volatile flammable substance" , "Form of alcohol" .)