The speaker looks back on a childhood scene: a horse pulling a brown trap softly through the snow, and a man ladling fresh milk. Everything is quiet and slow, and the child watches it all with wide-eyed wonder. The memory feels like a time when life was simple.
In the present, the speaker sits in the Square and feels that this world has gone. He thinks about the cost of progress and the loss of simplicity. Then he doubts himself. Perhaps nothing has really changed, and it is only his older way of seeing things that makes it seem so. The poem ends on a lighter note. Children dance around Tralee, playing simple games, full of life and energy. Their joy suggests that the wonder he remembers hasn't disappeared. The mood is nostalgic and gentle, tinged with a little sadness but finally warm and hopeful.