Moderately slow poet pursues article (7)
I believe the answer is:
andante
'moderately slow' is the definition.
(I've seen this in another clue)
'poet pursues article' is the wordplay.
'poet' becomes 'dante' (13th- and 14th-century Italian poet).
'pursues' says to put letters next to each other.
'article' becomes 'an' (English indefinite article).
'dante' put after 'an' is 'ANDANTE'.
(Other definitions for andante that I've seen before include "Musically, in moderately slow time" , "Moderately slowly" , "Moderately slow (mus.)" , "Moderately slow piece of music" , "deliberately played" .)