The speaker is riding a bus home when midnight arrives. He wakes from a doze to hear boys on bikes shouting "Happy New Year" as they pass. Inside the bus, nothing much changes. The passengers still have a long way to go, and he feels a quiet affection for them.
That calm moment sets off a reverie. He thinks back over earlier New Years: wild, drunken nights, a hilltop in the cold, a seaside parting from someone he loved. Then come the flatter ones, spent at home, numb to the glitter on television, drinking alone and blaming himself for broken resolutions. The tone is rueful and a little tired.
A single line about cold wind blasting through the window seems to pull him back to the present. The poem ends on its heaviest note: he remembers people who were alive at the start of the last year and are gone now. The celebration outside sounds hollow beside that loss.