Speaker
The speaker is an omniscient, mysterious being, almost without any identity except for that of a neutral observer. However, they do make a more prominent appearance on the page exactly once, with the line "Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling." This line lets us know that the speaker has a body and an identity, at least to the extent that they are able to hear and to use a first-person pronoun. They appear to be a fellow Londoner, but an extremely removed and objective one—able to incisively comment on every other resident's experience and mental life and move freely between their perspectives.
The Boys
The speaker observes a group of giddy schoolboys enjoying the snow, treating it as a sensory playground. They freeze their mouths and hands touching it and making snowballs, and they feast their eyes on the sight of it lining nearby trees. Through these characters, the poet demonstrates the way snow reconnects city dwellers with the worlds of nature and sensation. The boys respond to the snow with childlike wonder and renewed fascination with the world, indicating that, while urban life compromises childhood innocence and joy, natural phenomena do the opposite.
The Workers
The morning after the snowfall, London's workers trudge through the drifts with difficulty on their way to their jobs. The speaker does not indicate what kind of work they do, but suggests that their lives are stressful and muddied by various worries. The snow does not change their material circumstances much—they still go to work and the causes of their worries don't disappear. However, its beauty makes these stressors, and the environment in which they arose, seem minor and even illusory. Merely by enjoying the beauty of the snow and focusing on that rather than on day-to-day drudgery, the workers manage to expose the artificiality of contemporary urban life.
