My penning lyric poems with little time for humility (7)
I believe the answer is:
modesty
'humility' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'my penning lyric poems with little time' is the wordplay.
'penning' indicates putting letters inside.
'lyric poems' becomes 'odes' (ode is a kind of lyric poem).
'with' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'little time' becomes 't' (abbreviation for time).
'odes'+'t'='odest'
'my' going around 'odest' is 'MODESTY'.
'for' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for modesty that I've seen before include "Humility; decency" , "Diffidence" , "Self-deprecating quality" , "Quality of being unpretentious" , "Way to get disorderly house under" .)