Sept haï-kaïs "La petite tortue ...", is only seventeen measures long—the number of syllables in a Japanese haiku. Alexis Roland-Manuel remarked on this "mélodie": "Do not let your modesty make you forget a certain fable by La Fontaine. You hurry slowly, perhaps, but none of your steps are wasted. How many hares envy you!" The harmony is pricked with fine, expressive dissonances. For the third "mélodie", "Le coq ...", the instruments "peck" the melody with appoggiaturas in a spirit similar to that in Ravel's "Histoires naturelles" (1906). According to Andrieu, "Maurice Delage's composition is simple and refined; the composer stays ever attentive
Matsuo Bashō poems continued into the 20th century, with notable works by Yamamoto Kenkichi, Imoto Nōichi, and Ogata Tsutomu. The 20th century also saw translations of Bashō's poems into languages and editions around the world. The position of Bashō in Western eyes as the "haiku" poet "par excellence" gives great influence to his poetry: Western preference for "haiku" over more traditional forms such as "tanka" or "renga" have rendered archetypal status to Bashō as Japanese poet and "haiku" as Japanese poetry. Some western scholars even believe that Bashō invented haiku. The impressionistic and concise nature of Bashō's verse greatly influenced Ezra Pound,